For those of you who know me, I HATE, yes HATE flying. Since I’m living in London, flying is unavoidable, unless there’s a train that goes from London to Malaysia (maybe I should build one!). Everytime when I’m about to step into the aeroplane, I wouldn’t be able to eat before that, and I become very restless and scared. During the flight, I can’t read, sleep, or eat. Yes, I’m totally wasting money and time!!! 12 hours of flight can be very torturing to me.
So I did some research on internet and gathered some useful tips from friends, I came out with some of these tips that worked for me. I was very much relaxed when I flew back from KL to London this time round, and I could sleep for a while, not much (I’m a light sleeper), I could even eat!!!! How cool is that!!!
Tip 1: You are in a bus!
Tell yourself that you are in a bus! Yes! It does look like a bus. When there’s turbulence, just remind yourself that bus do go through some bumpy road. That worked for me during turbulence. So I would imagine myself in a bus, or a tube, rides can be bumpy. It’s a silly idea, but it worked!
Tip 2: Get up and walk!
After the plane has taken off, when the seat belt sign is off, get up and walk to the toilet. Just to let yourself know you are in ‘control’. Sitting down can be scary, and it does looks like you aren’t in control. So walk, and when you reach your seat, do not sit down immediately, if you can, ask for an aisle seat, and stand beside it for 5-10 mins. Result? It calms me down, and I was able to eat! Yes! Eat!
Tip 3: Bring ipod, walkman, cd player!
Music often calms people down, so if you have ipod, or iphone or any gadgets that has music in it, bring it to the plane. Make sure you stored lots of music to keep you occupied. Another thing that helped me was-sermons! Yes, sermons! I downloaded some Rev. Edmund Chan’s conference talks, and I listened to it in the plane. I quite enjoyed it myself.
There are many more tips that you could find in the net, but these 3 tips have helped me a lot. I was so relaxed that I didn’t realize time has passed quite fast, without me knowing, we were soon landing. I didn’t feel it was a long flight.
I do remember one person’s advice: Enjoy your flight! There’s nothing else you could do in mid-air. So there I was in the plane, relaxed, with Shern beside me, listening to sermons, enjoying God’s presence, and constantly remind myself, it’s just a BUS RIDE!
Shern & Rachel Foo 