If you would love to travel but when you think about it you instantly start to feel fearful, scared or uptight, you are not alone. There are more people that have travel anxiety than you might believe. In some cases we are talking about a fear that is associated with any travel form but in others, it is related to a specific transportation form.
The most common travel anxiety types that appear are:
- Fear of flying – Other travel forms do not normally create anxiety. In extreme cases, medication is needed to deal with the fear of flying.
- Fear of driving or riding over a bridge.
- Fear of traveling by car unless you are the driver.
According to a trusted auto accident attorney Springfield IL, travel anxiety is really common and can lead to so many problems, including unexpected collisions and inability to travel. Such fears are learned as they do not naturally appear during birth. This means that they can be treated much more easily than what naturally occurs at birth.
Symptoms that normally appear in travel anxieties are nervousness, being agitated, nausea, fear and upset stomach. Discomfort practically appears due to these symptoms so traveling is avoided. It is so easy to let these fears take control of your life and simply not travel anymore. Obviously, this leads to life quality being diminished. Negativity always appears and the problem simply becomes worse and worse as time passes.
Fortunately, overcoming travel anxiety is possible for most people around the world. The idea is to train yourself how to respond when anxiety appears and how you think about it. Anxiety is practically a neurological response to stimuli. The human mind mainly thinks in pictures. This means that what we see in our mind is what makes things worse and what can make things better.
You need to start your recovery by thinking about when you were confident about traveling. There is a difference between relaxed and confident. If you cannot find a travel-related moment in your life, you have to fall back on a moment of complete confidence, not necessarily related to travel. After that, you start to train yourself to use that confidence. The feeling of being safe that appears is what leads to you overcoming travel anxiety.
As you prepare to travel, there are specific moments or actions that lead to fear appearing. These are triggers. You need to identify the triggers that lead to anxiety and as fear builds up, you move towards that confidence that you gain from remembering strong moments in your life.
A great way to overcome travel anxiety is to keep planning future trips. The mind cannot differentiate between what is real and what is not as you plan something like this. This little trick can easily make you get used to planning getaways so when the real one is planned, there won’t be a problem.
Obviously, there can be more that can be said about the subject and in the event that you cannot overcome travel anxiety alone, the best thing you can do is to talk to a psychologist that is specialized in phobias. This will help you for sure.