Do the prospects of holiday air travel rob you of your night’s sleep? Does thinking of booking that flight online make you nauseous? On the drive to the airport, do you have to fight the temptation of stopping the car and getting out? Are you desperate for anything that might cure your fear of flying? If so, you are not alone! Former Oakland Raiders head coach and Monday Night Football color commentator John Madden is famous for his fear of flying which culminated in a 1979 panic attack on board an airplane.

Mr. Madden attributes his fear of flying to claustrophobia, an anxiety disorder that essentially encompasses the fear of closely confined spaces. He shares this disorder with a number of other reluctant airline passengers. According to a survey compiled by the “Fear of Flying” website (1) that encompassed poll results spanning a five year period, the fear of being confined to small spaces was a common theme for 4.41 percent of respondents.

Leading the pack with 40.69% were those who suffered panic attacks because they were not in control of the flight and instead at the mercy of others; 34.56% stated that weather and turbulence was a deciding factor, while the fear of hijackings and terrorists only concerned about 8.58%. Most any of the respondents would have loved to find that decisive antidote or cure; fear of flying should be considered a most crippling condition in that it makes life much more difficult for those suffering from it.

Education is a proper treatment to cure a fear of flying and by and large those who experience dread due to any weather related phenomenon or because of the possibility of hijackings find that learning about the technical aspects of flying and also safety measures from an expert in the field will provide something akin to a cure. Fear of flying brought on by claustrophobia induced anxiety may require cognitive behavior therapy and in some cases may also respond well to medication such as Xanax or Valium.

Some searching for a cure - fear of flying may have debilitated them to such an extent that they are unable to function in their chosen profession – will attempt hypnotherapy and alternative methods, usually when medication has failed to yield the desired result or when an individual resists the notion of using chemicals to urge the fight or flight response that any thoughts of flying by aircraft are eliciting.

Overall, it is noteworthy that treatments will have to vary, depending on the sufferer’s symptoms, her or his causes for the fear of flying in the first place, and also the strength and duration of the symptoms associated with that fear. In some cases a combination of the three is indicated so as to attack the unfound anxieties on an intellectual basis, from an emotional vantage point, and also from a body chemistry angle. While there is no guarantee that one method will work better than another, there is evidence that suggests treatment of a particular aspect of the fear of flying is much more successful than attempting to tackle the problem as an amorphous overall feeling.