How can hypnotherapy help with travel anxiety?

Seeing different cultures and travelling is an enriching experience. It gives us perspective, helps us learn and allows us to grow as people. For some of us though, the idea of travelling is filled with anxiety.

Whether you have a fear of flying, struggle with driving anxiety, find new environments difficult or are worried about adapting to new restrictions in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, travel anxiety can hold many of us back. Often those with travel anxiety will struggle with anxiety in other areas of their life too, with the unpredictable nature of travelling making things worse.

If you can relate to this but are desperate to travel (and enjoy it!) don’t worry, there are therapies that can help. Alongside talking therapies like counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy, hypnotherapy is an excellent tool many are turning to for travel anxiety.

Here are a few ways hypnotherapy can help with travel anxiety:

Help you identify the cause

Together with your hypnotherapist, you can take a closer look at what is causing your travel anxiety. For some, it is the travelling itself that causes anxiety (flying, driving, taking public transport), while for others it is more to do with being in an unfamiliar environment or worrying about what could happen.

Use techniques to help reduce anxiety

Once you have figured out what’s at the root of your anxiety, your hypnotherapist can use different techniques, including suggestion techniques, to help reduce those feelings of anxiety when you travel. When you’re under hypnosis, you are in a very relaxed state and it’s believed that your subconscious is more open to suggestion. A hypnotherapist will be able to suggest things here to help convince your subconscious that travel doesn’t make you anxious.

Relax while you’re away

Your hypnotherapist may also teach you self-hypnosis and/or relaxation techniques. These can be useful for when you are travelling (or are about to go travelling). This can reinforce the work done in your hypnotherapy session and help you remain calm.

As well as these hypnotherapy tools, there are other things you can do to help reduce anxiety when travelling such as:

• avoid too much alcohol or caffeine (these can make anxiety worse)
• try and get enough sleep
• carve out some quiet time to yourself while you’re away
• create a routine once you arrive at a new destination
• journal about any worries, then tear up the page

Be kind to yourself and know that with support – nothing can hold you back.

If you found this article helpful, you might also like:

• How to beat driving anxiety with hypnotherapy
• Driving anxiety – can hypnotherapy help?
• “Putting the breaks on” – Fear of driving