Why trying to calm down on a flight makes anxiety worse

What you’ll explore in this article: Why the instinct to calm yourself down during a flight can actually keep anxiety going, and what it might look like to respond differently.

When anxiety shows up on a flight, the response is usually immediate. You notice the feeling building and something in you says, “I need to calm down.” It is a very natural reaction. No one enjoys feeling anxious, especially in an environment where you cannot easily leave, and the instinct to reduce that feeling makes complete sense.

So you might start trying to manage it. You slow your breathing, you focus on relaxing your body, you distract yourself with music or a film, or you repeat reassuring thoughts. Sometimes this helps, at least for a while. But often, it does not last. The anxiety comes back, or it never really leaves, and now there is an additional layer of frustration. You might start wondering why it is not working, or what you are doing wrong.

There is something subtle happening here that is easy to miss. When your mind tells you to calm down, there is an assumption underneath it. The assumption is that this feeling should not be here. That anxiety is a problem to be solved, something that needs to be reduced or removed before you can feel okay again.

Your body picks up on that message. It treats the anxiety as something important, something that requires attention. And the more attention you give it, the more central it becomes to your experience. You might start monitoring how you feel, checking whether the anxiety is increasing or decreasing, noticing every shift in your body. That monitoring keeps you locked into the experience.

It can become a loop. You feel anxious, you try to calm down, you check whether it is working, and when it is not fully gone, you try harder. Each attempt is understandable, but together they keep the system active.

This is not because you are doing something wrong. It is because anxiety does not respond particularly well to control. The more you try to force it to go away, the more your system treats it as something that matters.

A different approach is to shift the goal slightly. Instead of asking, “How do I calm down?”, the question becomes, “How do I stay with this?” That does not mean doing nothing or giving up. It means changing your relationship with what is happening.

You might notice the sensations in your body without needing them to change. You might notice the thoughts that come up, without needing to answer them or push them away. You might notice the urge to escape or fix the feeling, and simply acknowledge that it is there.

This can feel counterintuitive at first. It goes against the instinct to reduce discomfort. But it changes something important. You are no longer in a struggle with the anxiety. You are allowing it to be part of your experience without letting it dictate what you do next.

Over time, this creates space. Anxiety still rises and falls, but it is no longer something you have to win against. It becomes something you can carry with you.

One of the most helpful shifts is recognising that calm is not a requirement for flying. You do not need to feel calm in order to be safe. You do not need to eliminate anxiety in order to cope. You can feel anxious and still sit on a plane, still go through turbulence, still arrive at your destination.

That is a very different way of approaching the experience. Instead of trying to control how you feel, you begin to trust that you can handle feeling the way you do. And from that place, the intensity of the struggle often starts to ease.

— Dr Kristy