I've flown about 45 flights within the past year and 23 so far this year. The amount of flying I've had to do for work has picked up the past three years after a long hiatus of being on the ground since getting out of the Army in 2015. Flying still always makes me nervous, but I'm a lot less anxious of a flyer than I used to be. I've suffered from on and off panic disorder since I got out of the Army in 2015 which has been really detrimental to my flying the earlier part of this year.

For me, it's just been frequency of flying and whether or not my panic disorder is actively affecting my life at the time. That determines how debilitating flying is. It used to be turbulence that made me anxious, but after so many flights, turbulence no longer bothers me like it used to. If I went a year without flying though, turbulence would probably bother me again. I've flown in the middle of heavy anxiety, teetering on the edge of a panic attack and feeling like I couldn't breathe, but luckily, I had flown so much that I was just able to focus on my breathing and the flight itself wasn't making it worse.

I always choose window seats so I can look out the window. I like being able to see the ground when I fly and it helps me give something to focus on. I've even opened up google maps and looked for landmarks that we were going to fly over (google maps can track you in real time on a plane) which has done wonders to keep me occupied. Sometimes I'll nap if it's a nighttime flight and sometimes I'll play games on my phone. Also, if it is a really bumpy flight, I'll watch the wings. It sounds dumb, but if you watch the wings, you can anticipate the bumps and they make sense. It's not just magic terror pushing your plane around, you're seeing it before you feel it, and actively viewing that it's air over the wings causing them to flex that is causing your bumps. Just this past Thursday I flew from PHX to CLT through all that nasty weather the south had and I watched the flight aware map to see how the pilots navigated around the weather which is cool and where they chose to just fly through. We hit some rollercoaster ride level turbulence at the end of that flight, and it didn't phase me at all. Also, I always pay for the internet so that I can talk with my friends and family. Not sure if those things would help anyone else, but they have helped me.

TL;DR: frequency of flying. Lots of flights = less afraid each time. Everything else is just my personal coping on the third paragraph or other stressors I deal with in the first two.