your passport, medication, etc), Bertagnolli suggests carrying them on your person. If you tend to be a constant “checker” and are worried about the location of certain valuable items (ie.

If panic strikes on a plane or train, these distractions can help you regulate your breathing and heart rate by allowing you to immerse yourself in something enjoyable and light. Arm yourself with podcasts, pre-downloaded video, books, and perhaps some things that don't require battery power, he suggests. Bertagnolli has three go-to tools to help mitigate this all-consuming stress response. So what can you do to get back into a vacation state of mind? Bertagnolli shares a four-part strategy that’ll help you start to conquer travel anxiety so you can relax and enjoy: Identify, Prepare, Adapt, Decompress.Īt this stage, you’re on your journey, but you still might have concerns that come up along the way - each of which could trigger anxiety and panic. Bertagnolli says “having thoughts which are typically catastrophic in nature - eg: if I go on this trip, something terrible will happen and I won't be able to cope,” can be enough of a trigger. Not fun, to say the least.Ī catastrophe needn’t actually occur for your mind and body to process as if there was a life-or-death moment. Think: chest tightness, increased heart rate, sweat palms, and the feeling of impending doom. According to One Medical clinical psychologist Andrew Bertagnolli, Ph.D., this unique type of stress is “triggered when thinking about or actually traveling, and is often associated with visiting an unfamiliar place.”įear of the unknown (like, trying to read a menu in Japanese, for instance) or stresses around money (like the cost of a flight or a late checkout fee) can compound - your brain and body retain these stress events, and it can bring on the incredibly uncomfortable experience of anxiety. And the irony is, your vacation time is supposed to be when you decompress from stress!įrom planning your dream trip, through the TSA checkpoints, to making your way through a foreign land, travel anxiety can take center stage. Whether you’re racing through the terminal to make a connection, trying to find a good, affordable hotel, or discovering you forgot to change your USD into EUR, travel can be incredibly stressful. Clinical Editor: Andrew Bertagnolli, Ph.D.

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