flight anxiety

tldr; took 10mg propranalol, flight anxiety semi-permanently (n=3) went away

so i used to (as of ~6 months ago) have really bad flight anxiety. the smallest amount of turbulence would make me clench the armrests for dear life.

i’ve intentionally missed flights because of this, and because flying is cheap and convenient, this was a major hindrance in my life that i wanted to get rid of.

it wasn’t the potential dying part which i minded (although i would prefer not to die), but the fact that if anything happened my last moments would likely be spent in terror.

anyway, recently i’ve been more and more attracted to materialism as the true nature of reality, and thus reasoned i must fix this directly by the root cause, my brain.

years ago i had been given a prescription for propranolol, for ’exam anxiety’. i took 5mg (half of one 10mg sized pills they had given me) on a whim and felt nothing, thus ending my experiment then and there.

now i had looked online before for general flight anxiety tips, and there would be some hippie-esque tips like “sensory grounding” and “let go”. even learning about how airplanes work did not really help, the anxiety really was some maladaptive response i had picked up somewhere.

at some point i got fed up and decided to just find a way to shut down my body during a flight, so i naturally turned to researching chemicals that would do the trick.

the obvious choice was some form of benzodiazepines (fx. xanax, etc.), however, i live in a country where it’s quite hard to get these without some form of prescription, and trying to convince a doctor that i would need a lot of xanax for ‘flight anxiety’ seemed to be unrealistic.

i then remembered my long forgotten bottle of propranalol, with around 249.5 doses remaining. some quick research and there was some evidence and experiences using against flight anxiety. some more research later and i found myself quite excited, as the proposed mechanism of action seemed to be quite effective.

from ChatGPT:

Propranolol works by blocking beta-adrenergic receptors, reducing the effects of adrenaline on the heart and nervous system, which lowers heart rate, blood pressure, and physical symptoms of anxiety

selection bias or not, this seemed to be closed to the symptoms i was experiencing.

It is thought that beta blockers do not directly treat psychological symptoms of anxiety, but can help control physical symptoms such as palpitations, and this may interfere with a positive feedback loop to indirectly reduce psychological anxiety

• Wikipedia (Propranolol)

thats fine, i’m a materialist now, baby.

the most interesting thing i came across was propranalol’s effect on short-term memory:

Propranolol works to inhibit the actions of norepinephrine (noradrenaline), a neurotransmitter that enhances memory consolidation. In one small study, individuals given propranolol immediately after trauma experienced fewer stress-related symptoms and lower rates of PTSD than respective control groups who did not receive the drug. Due to the fact that memories and their emotional content are reconsolidated in the hours after they are recalled or re-experienced, propranolol can also diminish the emotional impact of already formed memories; for this reason, it is also being studied in the treatment of specific phobias, such as arachnophobia, dental fear, and social phobia.

• Wikipedia (Propranolol)

thus, if this is correct, propranalol could potentialy remove my flight anxiety, by taking it once, forever.

anyway long story short i ended up trying it, taking the recommended dose (10mg as per prescription) 30 minutes before boarding (with peak blood plasma apparently being around 60-90 minutes after ingestion), and having a great flight, even with turbulence. i actually enjoyed flying for once, even enjoying the turbulence.

the effect was a sort of dampening of my physical senses, especially my adrenaline. bumps that would usually send my heart racing, and send a wave of anxiety to my chest, now just manifested as a slight tension in my stomach, which would subside within seconds.

so i think that this experiment was a huge success. what i now was most interested in was if this effect was going to last.

around 5 months later, i booked a weekend flight, and decided to try not taking propranalol both times, to see what would happen.

what i found was, this anti-adrenaline effect was still at least 80% there, compared to before ever taking propranalol.

even if the effect is completely gone by 6 months (doubtful, but will see and update), some quick maths gives me:

(247 doses * 6 months) / 12 = 123.5 years

so the whole bottle should last me (hopefully) a lifetime.