Why do I cry more easily on planes?

“There's a plethora of evidence that you go into a relative state of hypoxia [oxygen deficiency] when you're in flight,” said Quigley. The affects, she says, may not be realized by passengers. “One person might feel weepy, another sleepy – hypoxia affects people in different ways.



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And a mix of psychological factors related to the plane's altitude and a perceived loss of control can cause a person to break down emotionally once in the air, DeLuca says. “We have little control over our environment while we are traveling by plane,” De Luca says.

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The average age of onset of fearful flying is 27 years. Fearful flyers often report that their anxiety developed after the birth of a child.

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Turbulence is a sudden and sometimes violent shift in airflow. Those irregular motions in the atmosphere create air currents that can cause passengers on an airplane to experience annoying bumps during a flight, or it can be severe enough to throw an airplane out of control. (The pilots) aren't scared at all.

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At the end of the day, pilots are people who fly, and there's no reason to think that they have more or less anxiety than people who don't fly. Anxiety about flying, per se, is probably less common in pilots than in the general population, but even in that area, you might be surprised.

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It's not just your imagination – flying in an airplane can zap your energy, dry your skin and make various body parts feel different or weird. How come? “The pressure, temperature and oxygen levels in the cabin fluctuate, and the humidity level is lower than it is at sea level,” says Matthew Goldman, MD.

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avi·?o·?pho·?bia ?a-ve-?-'fo-be-? ?a- variants or less commonly aviaphobia. : intense fear or dislike of flying : aerophobia. Relatively few of the estimated 25 million Americans who suffer from aviophobia avoid flying altogether.

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The list of triggers is long: turbulence, take-off, landings, terrorism, crashes, social anxieties, or being too far from home. Some people fear fire, illness spread through the air system, using the toilets, or violence on a plane.

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So many travelers struggle with this fear, so the best way to cope is to find a seat with plenty of space. The least crowded section of the plane is first or business class. But if upgraded flying isn't in your budget there are still options. Try sitting in an aisle seat in an exit row towards the front of the plane.

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Due to the risks to flight safety posed by ADHD, regulatory authorities worldwide consider ADHD a disqualifying condition for pilots. Unfortunately, pilots sometimes fail to disclose ADHD to their Aviation Medical Examiner (AME).

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Pilots are trained to handle all sorts of nerve-racking situations, but that doesn't mean that they don't get scared—especially in these real instances, told by the pilots who experienced them, of serious in-flight fear.

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Severe turbulence can cause a plane to drop so suddenly that pilots temporarily lose control. But, again, that's not enough to crash the plane. That's not to say it's never happened.

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While pilots can't actually see turbulence, they often know what is coming up, thanks to reports from other planes, weather reports, and radar equipment. However, clear air turbulence (severe turbulence occurring in cloudless areas) can sometimes catch pilots off guard.

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Usually the pilots will leave the autopilot engaged. In small airplanes with limited autopilots, it is better to fly manually, but with more sophisticated airplanes the autopilot is a valid option in turbulence. Severe turbulence is actually very rare.

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