They get angry and stressed when events and people slow them down. Women are more likely to worry or be afraid about what may happen to them, perhaps because they have more thoughts of being a victim and having to be more careful. While air-travel stress may be ubiquitous for business travelers, the UW researchers believe it is not inevitable. What we have to look at is how we can help people to cope better, such as having the airlines show videotapes illustrating the problems of air-travel stress and how to deal with them. It wouldn't be difficult to teach passengers some relaxation skills and provide more information on what to expect at their destination.
Travelers can benefit from learning about adaptive behavior in handling unexpected situations.
It's desirable to anticipate the possibility of having problems so you can handle them, but it's not adaptive behavior for people to explode on an airplane by throwing a drink or screaming at a flight attendant when a flight is delayed. Another adaptive behavior would be to learn to avoid feeling overwhelmed by things that people can't control such as airline delays, crowded flights and jammed overhead luggage bins, Bricker added. In their study, Bricker and Sarason found that the amount of travel stress among business people fell in a predictable pattern. The majority experienced some or a moderate amount of travel stress. A small number of people suffered either a high stress level or little or no stress.