I tried that, and it had zero effect. Then I had another one, and something to drink, and that worked, but was probably not a bright idea. I did manage to sleep just a little bit, which was a first for me, flying. I was still terrified for the first half hour, though, so I wouldn't really say the anti-anxiety stuff had any effect at all.
Oh, they work for me. They mainly work on the physical side effects of anxiety -- the muscle tension, pain in the chest, etc. I need to also take a melatonin to be able to sleep.
The mental fear is still up to you. Usually I just embrace it and take the moment of takeoff as a time to reflect on my own mortality -- if you can come to terms with the chance of your early, violent death then there is no need to panic.
It's been theorized and shown in various studies that a lot of a drug effectiveness due to the placebo effect, so it may be that if you don't think it will help you it's likely not to.
Yeah. I have a relative who is deathly afraid of flying and she has tried taking anxiety meds. She said they just make want to talk to strangers more about how scared she is. ha ha. It breaks down normal social barriers but she is still deathly afraid. I think she'd rather try to keep it to herself as much as possible.
