How to Cope With Flight Anxiety Post-COVID

https://happiful.com/how-to-cope-with-flight-anxiety-post-covid/

During the pandemic, most travel was restricted. A lot of us were confined to our homes or the occasional local walk and for some this became a comfort zone of sorts….

 

How to Cope With Flight Anxiety Post COVID

Virtual Reality may provide a solution for many.

Used in the U.S., Europe and Asia for over 25 years, Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy offers

a bridge between the imaginal world and the real world setting that has been shown to be

a more comfortable and effective starting point for many seeking to overcome their fears and

phobias.  For more information, contact us at frontoffice@vrphobia.com

 

 

Virtual Reality for the Attenuation of Pain and Anxiety

The Virtual Reality Medical Center and nonprofit affiliate, Interactive Media Institute, recently published the article, “Using Virtual Reality to Mobilize Health Care: Mobile Virtual Reality Technology for Attenuation of Anxiety and Pain” in the January Issue of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. The article summarizes the use of virtual reality as a tool for pain distraction and stress reduction in patients. This tool has been used to treat phobias, stress disorders, distract from surgical pain, and help overcome chronic pain. As a mobile healthcare platform, virtual reality and related technologies are changing the face of healthcare services by increasing access, efficiency, and effectiveness.

For the full text, please visit: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8197481/

Please direct any questions regarding this article to Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold at frontoffice@vrphobia.com

 

 

Wiederhold BK, Miller IT, Wiederhold MD. Using Virtual Reality to Mobilize Health Care: Mobile Virtual Reality Technology for Attenuation of Anxiety and Pain. IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. 2018 Jan;7(1):106-9.

This Anxiety Disorder Makes People Afraid of Vomit

http://www.health.com/anxiety/emetophobia

Emetophobia is very real—and can make life extremely challenging.

SARAH KLEIN

June 21, 2018

For as long as she can remember, Rachel has been afraid of vomit. And not just afraid in the way that everyone finds vomit unpleasant. She has a diagnosable fear of vomiting known as emetophobia.

“The first moment my parents and I really realized I had a more significant reaction than most people to vomit was when I was very young,” she says. “We were driving through a Christmas light show. The finale was a tunnel of flashing lights, and my little cousin was sick next to me in the car. I started panicking, and I even opened the car door while we were still driving in an attempt to get away from the situation as quickly as possible.”

Years of vomit anxiety followed, whether she was sick herself, saw someone else who was ill, or even saw vomit on the ground or on TV. “While some people might say, ‘ew, gross,’ but then move on with their lives, the scene replays in my head for a long time after,” she says.

Fear is totally normal, but a phobia—of vomit, flying, heights, snakes, and more—is problematic. “A phobia is a diagnosable disorder that impacts people’s lives negatively,” says clinical psychologist Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, president of the Virtual Reality Medical Center in California, where she treats people with anxiety disorders using VR.

To read the full article, please visit:  http://www.health.com/anxiety/emetophobia

Contact Virtual Reality Medical Center at frontoffice@vrphobia.com to schedule an appointment.

 

The Power of Virtual Reality for Pain and Anxiety

http://pain-practitioner.aapainmanage.org/doc/american-academy-of-pain-management/the-pain-practitioner—aug17/2017080801/#20

 

The Pain Practitioner interviewed Professor Dr. Brenda K Wiederhold, Chief Executive Officer of the Interactive Media Institute, a 501c3 non-profit, and President of the Virtual Reality Medical Center.  Please click on Pain Practitioner link above to read the 3-page interview.

 

Contact Information:

Email:  frontoffice@vrphobia.com

Wiederhold’s clinic uses the technology for medical therapy to help patients deal with PTSD, anxiety, phobias (like fear of flying and fear of driving), pain during medical procedures and chronic pain. She predicts more clinics using VR will pop-up in California and across the country within the near future.

 

Virtual Reality for the Attenuation of Pain and Anxiety

The Virtual Reality Medical Center and nonprofit affiliate, Interactive Media Institute, recently published the article, “Using Virtual Reality to Mobilize Health Care: Mobile Virtual Reality Technology for Attenuation of Anxiety and Pain” in the January Issue of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. The article summarizes the use of virtual reality as a tool for pain distraction and stress reduction in patients. This tool has been used to treat phobias, stress disorders, distract from surgical pain, and help overcome chronic pain. As a mobile healthcare platform, virtual reality and related technologies are changing the face of healthcare services by increasing access, efficiency, and effectiveness.

For the full text, please visit: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8197481/

Please direct any questions regarding this article to Dr. Brenda K. Wiederhold at frontoffice@vrphobia.com

 

 

Virtual Reality-Based Therapy Can Help Overcome PTSD and Other Disorders

By Shiva Reddy

Research shows that Virtual Reality-based Graded Exposure Therapy (GET) techniques can improve PTSD symptoms and associated disorders, indicating wider potential applications of Virtual Reality in psychotherapy.

In the recent past, virtual reality has attracted much attention as a potential method for psychotherapy to treat patients with phobiasaddictionsanxiety disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder. Various techniques based on virtual reality—such as virtual reality immersion therapy (VRIT), and virtual reality graded exposure therapy (VR-GET)—have been experimented with and proven to be very effective.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Exposure Therapy

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may develop when a person goes through one or more traumatic events such as sexual assault, serious injury, narrowly escaping death, domestic violence or watching a fellow soldier die on the battlefield.

People with PTSD typically suffer from disturbing recurring flashbacks, hyperarousal, bad dreams, frightening thoughts, emotional numbness and strong feelings of depression, guilt and worry.

Exposure therapy, a Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) technique, is the most widely employed tool to help victims manage PTSD symptoms. By helping patients to confront—rather than avoid—the memory of the traumatic event, exposure therapy techniques support the ability to overcome anxieties and fears.

Using other relaxation techniques, victims slowly gain control over responses to traumatic events and learn to cope in a much better way. Exposure therapy has been found to be very effective in treating PTSD, and has a high success rate in treating patients with specific phobias.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

Virtual reality, with its advanced visual immersion devices, specially programmed computers, and three-dimensional artificially created virtual environments, takes exposure therapy to a whole new level—allowing the patient to confront a traumatic experience in a safe and controlled manner.

The most extensive research regarding the applications for VR-based therapy for treating posttraumatic stress disorder was funded by the Office of Naval Research, starting in 2005. This initiative was part of a program to develop new technologies to assist combat veterans of Iraq/Afghanistan in managing PTSD symptoms.

Using new software, hardware, simulations, physiologic monitoring, skills training and therapeutic methods based on Virtual Reality, scientists have experimented with exposing combat veterans to their traumatic experiences in a graded manner.

The advantage of this VR-based Graded Exposure Therapy (VR-GET) is that it helps patients who find it difficult to identify or talk about a traumatic event—which impacts the ability to learn the required skills to cope with a number of anxiety-inducing situations.

In this setting, the combat veteran relives the traumatic episode in a simulation that captures the essential elements of the event—all in a safe and controlled manner—while trying to recognize and manage any excessive autonomic arousal and cognitive reactivity.

 

For the full article, click here.

Gender Differences in Virtual Reality Surgical Pain Distraction

Researchers from Belgium, Italy, Mexico, and California (USA) recently published a report comparing gender differences in virtual reality pain distraction following cardiac surgery. This international team from previous compared patients’ physiological and subjective responses based on gender. Very few studies have examined gender differences in physiological responses to VR. This study suggests that VR is an effective medium to reduce stress and anxiety in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. The researchers are interested in continued investigation and are working toward making this intervention more effective, less expensive and available across platforms to include mobile healthcare and behavioral health.

For information on this study, please contact the corresponding author, Brenda K. Wiederhold (frontoffice@vrphobia.com).

To access the full text: http://www.alliedacademies.org/articles/study-of-gender-differences-in-vr-response-following-cardiac-surgery-6922.html

Mosso JL, Wiederhold BK, La Paglia F, Guarino D, La Barbera D, Mosso Jr JL, Miller I, Wiederhold MD. Study of gender differences in VR response following cardiac surgery. Journal of Psychology and Cognition. 2017;2(1). http://www.alliedacademies.org/articles/study-of-gender-differences-in-vr-response-following-cardiac-surgery-6922.html

The Power of Virtual Reality for Pain and Anxiety

http://pain-practitioner.aapainmanage.org/doc/american-academy-of-pain-management/the-pain-practitioner—aug17/2017080801/#20

 

The Pain Practitioner interviewed Professor Dr. Brenda K Wiederhold, Chief Executive Officer of the Interactive Media Institute, a 501c3 non-profit,

and President of the Virtual Reality Medical Center.  Please click on Pain Practitioner link above to read the 3-page interview.

 

Contact Information:

 

Email:  frontoffice @ vrphobia.com

Wiederhold’s clinic uses the technology for medical therapy to help patients deal with PTSD, anxiety, phobias (like fear of flying), pain during medical procedures and chronic pain. She predicts more clinics using VR will pop-up in California and across the country within the near future.

 

 

 

 

Contact Information:

Virtual Reality Medical Center

9834 Genesee Avenue, Suite 427

La Jolla, California USA

frontoffice @ vrphobia.com

Experts say fear of flying is treatable

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NBA rookie Royce White disclosed that he is afraid to fly and said he expects to travel by bus to play in at least some of the basketball games for his team, the Houston Rockets.

But psychologists who treat fear of flying and travelers who’ve overcome it hope he’ll ditch the bus and get help instead.

“The treatments we have for this are so effective for fear of flying that upwards of 80 percent and sometimes even more people who get the treatment can fly,” said psychologist Todd Farchione, of Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, echoing statistics offered by other experts.

Farchione says fear of flying treatment consists of a “fairly standard” combination of cognitive and behavioral therapy. That includes identifying the patient’s “fear-provoking thoughts” and challenging them, then getting the patient to “gradually confront” the fear, by imagining flying and then doing it. Some programs use flight simulators or virtual reality programs; others put patients on airplanes on the ground and in the air, accompanied by counselors.

Either way, “the core of treatment is exposure” to the sensations of flying, said psychologist John Hart, who treats fear of flying at the Menninger Clinic in Houston, where patients can use a flight simulator that “has noise and shakes your chair.”

“It’s like the cockpit of a plane, with video screens that look like windows and show the ground and various airports,” Hart says. “It vibrates, bounces, takes off and lands and has different kinds of weather.”

Lisa Fabrega, a detox and lifestyle coach who lives in North Bergen, N.J., was cured by a Freedom to Fly workshop at White Plains Hospital’s Anxiety & Phobia Treatment Center in White Plains, N.Y. The program included sitting in a plane on the ground at a small airport and meeting a retired American Airlines captain.

“We got to bombard him with our most paranoid questions,” Fabrega said.

Before she took the class, she said, “even thinking about getting on a plane would make me break into a sweat.” She learned to visualize herself on a plane and deal with her feelings.

The White Plains program also encourages various types of exposure therapy, like riding a Ferris wheel, the Empire State Building’s SkyRide attraction or the aerial tramway over the East River from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island. The final session is a commercial flight to a nearby city and back. The program costs about $1,500 but is often covered by insurance for outpatient therapy.

Fabrega said half her family is from Panama and she was missing weddings and other events because she was afraid to fly. If she did fly, she said, “I had to be knocked out with Xanax.”

Now she routinely flies, drug-free, around the world.

Hart, of the Menninger Clinic, says medicating yourself with Xanax, used to treat anxiety and panic disorders, is a bad idea for phobic fliers because it “can actually interfere with the process” of coping with anxiety. The Menninger program consists of a one-day workshop followed by up to six months of exposure therapy and counseling that includes helping people with coping skills and changing their beliefs about air travel and using statistics and safety information with pilots going over how planes are built and flown.

Experts say many of those who fear flying have underlying fears of heights or claustrophobia. Some sufferers trace their fears to a stormy flight or other bad experience, but many don’t know why they’re afraid. Some experts say anxiety may run in families; others say some people are sensitive to turbulence, perhaps because of differences in the vestibular system, which controls balance.

While some patients worry about crashing, others fear nausea, vomiting or even heart attacks. They feel trapped on planes, fear “loss of control” and have “anxiety about their anxiety,” said Farchione, whose approach to treating flight phobia was featured on the PBS show “This Emotional Life.”

Hart says the sufferers don’t like it when the plane door closes and the cabin is pressurized.

“It’s not like a car: You can’t stop and get out,” Hart explained.

Challenging fearful thoughts is key.

“How likely is the plane going to crash? It’s much safer than driving or taking the bus,” said Farchione. And when symptoms of anxiety begin, patients are taught that it may feel frightening, “but you’re not going to die. The plane is not crashing.”

Farchione noted that White is not the only sports figure to go public with flight phobia. Retired NFL coach and sports commentator John Madden famously traveled by bus, his customized Madden Cruiser, to avoid planes.

At the Virtual Reality Medical Center, which has offices in Los Angeles and Brussels and has treated more than 1,000 people in 15 years, patients don headsets and sensors and are immersed in a 360-degree, three-dimensional visual and auditory computer simulation of air travel, from packing to security to boarding and taking flight. The software simulates night or day, various weather conditions and turbulence. The immersion is paired with sensors that measure breathing, heart and perspiration rates so patients can learn to recognize and handle symptoms of anxiety. The treatment costs about $2,000 and takes eight to 10 sessions.

Physician Mark Wiederhold, who runs Virtual Reality with his wife, Brenda, says for most people the anxiety will never completely vanish, “but you can learn to cope with it.”

John E. DiScala, better known as the travel writer and blogger Johnny Jet, flies constantly, but as a 17-year-old, he had an anxiety attack before boarding a plane for a trip to Australia with his mom and didn’t fly for three years. As an asthma sufferer, he says, “my fear was not being in control. What will happen if I have an asthma attack in the air?”

A few years later, someone gave him a ticket to visit a friend in Tucson, Ariz. Emboldened by a positive horoscope, he decided to “give it a shot” and got through that flight and a second one to Los Angeles for a family funeral.

“I got over my fear of flying, but I’m always aware of that anxiety, even though I fly more than 150,000 miles a year,” he said. “If I can do it, anybody can do it.”

For Caitlin Condon, who works in tech communications in Cambridge, Mass., information was key in coping with flight phobia.

“Planes are this crazy magical thing,” she said. “You’re flying 500 mph in a pressurized tube, seven miles above the earth.”

She did a lot of research online, using sites like Flyingwithoutfear.com and threads about air travel on the knowledge-sharing site Quora. Now she can get on a plane whenever she wants.

“Flying,” she said, “is the safest way to travel except for elevators.”

This article originally was published in foxnews.