Achieving Comfortable Flight – Digital Kit
Achieving Comfortable Flight:
Taking the Anxiety Out of Airline Travel
DIGITAL KIT
- 2 Digital eBooks
- 11 Audio Programs
- 1 set of 14 quick reference cards to print and cut out
“Have a nice flight!”
To the millions of travelers plagued with the crippling fear of flying, these words bring little or no comfort. Each year a growing number of business flyers inefficiently juggle schedules to include alternate means of travel. And the vacationer is limited in choosing destinations by the time restraints of ground transportation. Acknowledging the intensity of this phenomenon, Dr. Reid Wilson and Captain T. W. Cummings collaborated to produce a thorough approach to achieving this much sought comfort level for commercial air travel. The Achieving Comfortable Flight series is not a miracle cure but rather a realistic method, systematically designed to solve a growing problem. The team formed by Dr. Wilson and Captain Cummings matches a clinical knowledge of the fear with a practical understanding of the cause. From these combined efforts the ACF series is now available in eBook and audio file format for use in the privacy of home or office. No longer does the busy executive have to wait for a seminar that fits his schedule. No embarrassment for that traveler who feels compelled to hide his fear. No longer do you have to suffer. The ACF series provides you with the luxury of learning in your own chosen environment.
The ACF series is presented in two digital eBooks, 11 audio files, and a set of quick reference cards to print at home. Noting that there are differing levels of fearful flyers, the series is designed so that you select an area of concentration or pursue the entire study. The eBooks present alternatives to assist you in conquering your fears, as well as a detail of the “nuts and bolts” of an airline craft in easy, non-technical language. The audio programs range from breathing exercises and skills review to an in-depth guide through a flight. They are also designed for when you desire more practice or information. In addition, a set of quick reference cards is included for later review.
The combination of the eBooks and audio programs will help you develop the skills to overcome your own personal fears. Millions of Americans enjoy flying as a fast, safe and comfortable means of transportation. Let us help you be one of them.
About the Authors
Reid Wilson, Ph.D.
Dr. Wilson, a licensed psychologist, has devoted his entire 30-year career to self-help. He designed American Airlines’ first national program for the fearful flier, called “AAchieving Flight.” He is author of the Stopping the Noise in Your Head and the classic self-help book Don’t Panic. He is co-author of Stop Obsessing! (Foa & Wilson), as well as Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents and Playing with Anxiety (Wilson & Lyons). He is a Founding Clinical Fellow of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and Fellow of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). In 2014 he received ADAA’s highest service award, and received the 2019 Service Award by the International OCD Foundation. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, CNN, The Katie Show, A&E’s Hoarders, and MTV’s True Life. He directs the longest-running and largest free anxiety self-help website on the internet – anxieties.com.
Captain T.W. Cummings
With 36 years of flying experience, including WWII bomber missions and a distinguished 31-year with Pan Am World Airways, Captain Cummings established the “Freedom from Fear of Flying” program in 1975. The Captain and his wife Carmen, a practicing psychologist with an emphasis on phobias, conducted more than 200 seminars throughout the US and overseas. In addition, the Captain’s expertise has been requested in books such as the Handbook of Phobia Therapy (Jason Aronson, Inc.) and eventually his own Freedom from Fear of Flying (Pocket Books). The Captain’s accomplishments in the field were acknowledged by his peers with his receipt of the Industry Service Award for his pioneering work in helping the fearful flyer. My friend Slim Cummings passed away in 2004 at the age of 87. But his work lives on.
Table of Contents
- 2 Digital eBooks
- 11 Audio Programs
- 1 set of 14 quick reference cards to print and cut out
eBook A:
Personal Strategies,
by Reid Wilson, Ph.D.
eBook B:
The Flight Experience,
by Captain T. W. Cummings, with Reid Wilson, Ph.D.
Audio 1: Introduction to the Series
Audio 2: Practicing Your Breathing Skills
Audio 3: The Captain’s Guide Through Your Flight
Audio 4: Associating with the Positive
Audio 5: Creating Comfort From Distress
Audio 6: Rehearsing Your Coping Skills
Audio 7: Generalized Relaxation and Imagery
Audio 8: Imagery Exposure: Boarding the Plane and Taxiing to the Runway
Audio 9: Imagery Exposure: The Take-off and Climb
Audio 10: Imagery Exposure: Cruising Through the Sky
Audio 11: Imagery Exposure: Descent, Landing and Arrival
Product Description
eBook A:
PERSONAL STRATEGIES
by Reid Wilson, Ph.D.
These simple, common-sense techniques have helped thousands of people to reduce their worries and tensions. They have been designed in this step-by-step guide to increase your comfort, confidence and enjoyment during flights:
- How to handle your worries before and during flights
- Responding to your uncomfortable physical symptoms
- Brief muscle relaxation skills for immediate relief
- Simple breathing skills that reduce tensions
- Stopping irrational thoughts as they arise
- Paradoxical actions that bring you comfort
- Overcoming the fear of heights and closed in spaces
- Taking care of concerns during takeoff, turbulence and weather conditions
eBook B:
THE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE
by Captain T.W. Cummings, with Reid Wilson, Ph.D.
This booklet discusses in detail all the facts of commercial flight to boost your confidence and trust in the airline industry:
- A step-by-step guide through the flight, describing over 75 sights, sounds and sensations you can expect on a routine flight
- The encouraging truth about weather: decisions for takeoff and landing; ice, snow, thunderstorms and lightning, wind shear
- Turbulence: what causes it, how it affects the plane and passengers
- The facts about the Air Traffic Control System and flight safety
- The aircraft: their maintenance and how they actually fly (the basics of aerodynamics)
- Flight crew selection, health requirements and on-going training
Audio Files:
Audio 1: Introduction to the Series (26 minutes)
Provides a summary of what it takes to fly comfortably. It introduces you to the each of the eBooks and audio files and suggests the most helpful ways for you to use the series.
Audio 2: Practicing Your Breathing Skills (17 minutes)
Our breathing patterns are medically proven to influence our physical symptoms. Learn three straightforward and simple breathing skills to relieve your body’s stresses and quiet your mind. Natural Breathing, the Calming Breath, and Calming Counts will help you to quickly clear unwanted thoughts and let you enjoy your flight with a quiet mind and a calm body.
Audio 3: The Captain’s Guide Through Your Flight (55 minutes)
This audio file will give you a chance to anticipate and understand the reactions of your own senses in an airplane flight. Follow Captain Cummings’ voice on an informative journey through every phase of the flight, from the time you arrive at the gate until the time you leave the plane at your destination. Find out what’s going on behind the closed door of the cockpit from takeoff to landing. And learn the reassuring facts about those noises and bumps that can startle you.
Audio 4: Associating with the Positive (13 minutes)
If you have had difficulty flying in the past, your body and mind may be conditioned to react spontaneously with distress about flying the next time, regardless of how hard you may try to have a positive outlook. Your body and mind need a chance to orient to the positive, to orient toward success. This is the first of three audio recordings that will use the powerful tool of guided imagery to help build your confidence. This recording will help you associate positive feelings with successfully reaching your goal of comfortable flight.
Audio 5: Creating Comfort from Distress (17 minutes)
Most people who become uncomfortable on a flight believe that they can’t control those feelings, that they will continue to feel bad no matter what they do. You can, in fact, change how your body feels, by changing your focus of attention. In this audio file you will experience, through imagery, how your body and mind can get tense and how it can reduce that tension and return to a calm state, all within minutes.
Audio 6: Rehearsing Your Coping Skills (15 minutes)
In this audio file you will have the opportunity to put all of your new skills together. Through guided imagery, you will “see” yourself in five different scenes of an actual flight which tend to cause people stress, such as take-off, or at cruising altitude in turbulent air. You will get to try out a variety of skills and determine which will be most helpful to you during your future flights. Once you get a sense of your best skills, this audio will also help you condition yourself to respond to your symptoms before and during your next flights.
Audio 7: Generalized Relaxation and Imagery (18 minutes)
These suggestions and images are designed to help you let go of your tensions and enjoy twenty minutes of peace and quiet. Because this is a generalized relaxation audio, some people listen to it every day. You can listen to this recording any time you want to become relaxed, including while on the plane.
Audio 8: Imagery Exposure: Boarding the Plane and Taxiing to the Runway (21 minutes)
Over the next four imagery exposure recordings, Captain Cummings guides you through the experience of flight, from boarding the plane to landing and arriving at your destination. These recordings are intended to be absorbed in a slow and easy manner, and can be paused anytime if you feel your anxiety building. In this recording, Captain Cummings describes what to expect when boarding the plane through to taxiing to the runway for takeoff.
Audio 9: Imagery Exposure: The Take-off and Climb (11 minutes)
In this recording, Captain Cummings describes the process of the plane’s take-off and climb to cruising altitude, and what you may feel, hear, and sense during this process.
Audio 10: Imagery Exposure:Cruising Through the Sky (9 minutes)
Being able to enjoy cruising through the sky toward your destination is probably something you feel is challenging or even impossible. In this recording, Captain Cummings explains how to begin changing your anxiety of the sights and sounds of cruising into comfort and even enjoyment. He also describes what you may hear from your captain during the cruising stage of your flight.
Audio 11: Imagery Exposure: Descent, Landing and Arrival (15 minutes)
In this recording, Captain Cummings guides you through what to expect in the gradual decent toward your destination, as well as the landing of the plane and final arrival at the airport terminal. He explains how the descent and landing works, and what you might feel and hear during this stage.
Quick Reference Cards
A set of 14 cards summarizing the primary self-help strategies to use prior to and during a flight, including eight ways to handle your worries, and ten methods to increase your physical comfort. Print them, cut them out, and carry them in your pocket book or briefcase for easy access to all the suggestions and skills.