Anxieties about relapse, having a psychotic break, struggling with depersonalization, or just having a classic panic attack while traveling, is just generally one of the travel mental health topics I get asked about the most. In this post, I’ll explain a few concepts and skills that I often share with clients and community members when they worry about losing control while traveling.
1) Travel involves uncertainty and brains crave certainty.
Traveling to new places will make an anxious brain chase control. This is especially true if you typically do a lot of checking and controlling compulsions in your everyday life. That trains the brain to seek out uncertainties to control. So it’ll register all of the uncertainties coming up on a trip: Will the plane get delayed? What if you get robbed? Have you learned enough Arabic to negotiate a taxi ride in Cairo? Will the weather be good? What if you get food poisoning? Are the llamas gonna spit on you?
The brain is going to notice all of those uncertainties and more! And it’ll recognize you can’t control them. So it’ll start throwing up intrusive thoughts about things you have done compulsions around in the past, like: obsessing over whether you’ll lose control. It’s giving you a chance to get that control you crave.
What to do? Thank the brain and be curious. It throws up those intrusive thoughts about losing control in the same way a guard dog barks. It’s just telling you there’s uncertainty. This is an opportunity to bring curiosity and excitement to your trip. Of course the brain is reacting to all of the new and unknown things you’re about to experience! We don’t have to pretend like those don’t exist. We don’t have to chase certainty about them. Let’s be curious and explore. We can even be curious about losing control in new places. Have you experienced depersonalization in a yurt while drinking fermented horse milk? Me neither!
2) Don't put fear in charge of vacation planning.
Personally, I’d say that one of the worst things a person can do with a fear like losing control, is to place that fear in charge of trip planning. Why is that a problem? Because you just demonstrated to your brain that you will let random brain indigestion take control of your life. All the brain did was throw up an uncertainty and willingly gave up control of your life. No wonder the brain is terrified of you losing control! You don’t even need to “lose” it. You’ll toss it away at the first sign of possibly experiencing some discomfort. That’s only going to make your brain worry more about losing control.
What to do? Instead of making the trip about avoiding things, plan your trip around valued actions and things you want to grow in your life.
This is because avoiding bad things isn’t the same as doing good things. It helps our mental health so much, and we have a much better vacation, if we give our time and energy to the things we want to see and do in the world.
A simple way to start working on this is to write out a few actions that you’ll define as success for the trip. Not feelings. Not brain stuff. Not subjective experiences. What actions will you do on this trip? How will you do those actions well (while having any thought or feeling)?
3) When you travel, what do you want to give?
Overcoming anxieties and compulsions around the fear of losing control, whether that’s on a trip or just sitting at home staring at the wall, will involve doing actions you value while the brain screams and whines about control. Learning how to do that can be challenging at first if we’ve spent our lives reacting to whatever the brain throws up. So here’s a big help with that:
Know what you want to GIVE.
When we’re struggling with mental health, we typically focus on GETTING. Trying to get control, get reassurance, get clean, get calm, get certainty, get relief, get people to like us, etc. All of that getting just creates the opposite.
Taking care of our mental health, at home, as a digital nomad, on an adventure, vacation, work trip, or whatever, involves a shift to GIVING.
What to do? This may sound like an extreme sport, but: Want to have ANY thought or feeling while giving what you came on the trip to give.
Giving includes you, too. If you want to give yourself relaxation, then spending all of your time trying to control uncertainties makes no sense. That’s not relaxing! You can have uncertainties about losing control, welcome those, and give yourself the supports and enjoyment you came on the trip to give.
A big help with giving is to identify intentions before you enter any situation. What do you want to give on the train? When you move to a new city? When you go out for a night of dancing? This is a practice I still find useful. It’s not about fixing or avoiding. It’s about giving our time and energy to what we want to grow in the world.
Enjoy!
To explore this specifically around panic attacks, and a workout plan of exercises before the trip, checkout: Getting over a fear of panic attacks on planes
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