This is something you can change though by changing your mindset and outlook. Airports are what they are, they are highly predictable and unlikely to change drastically. On the other hand you can recognise when you are begining to feel on alert, acknowledge it and let go of the feeling. Let it wash over you like a wave.
You are presumably not a terrorist, nor a criminal. The worst thing which can happen is that there is some misunderstanding and you are delayed a bit. And even that is very unlikely. If you make peace with that maybe that will help with the feeling?
Not saying that you can go full meditating zen monk with “this one little weird trick”, but if you can make the experience more pleasant for yourself by just a little bit maybe that is worth the try?
This means that even as a passenger with a completely clean record, every action you take is viewed through the lens of being potentially suspicious. The worst case scenario is not being delayed - it's being falsely accused.
Less importantly but hugely more likely is that you travel is disrupted. Your bags are misplaced or stolen. You can't take your water bottle so now you have to buy another for 10x the price. Your passport was accidentally torn so you now have to explain that to a skeptical border police officer. You don't speak the foreign language well enough to explain yourself. Your flight is cancelled and you must now rush to the only hotel to book a room before they sell out - or risk waiting in order to convince the airline to book it for you.
I don't disagree with you that some relaxation can go a long way to making such an experience more pleasant, but it's still true that there's more to go wrong in one international journey than in a whole month of most people's day-to-day lives.
It’s like browsing a Fandom site but in real life.
Even so, the little things alone can ruin the experience, before adding the big ones.
Maybe it's a busy day at the airport and you're stuck in a surprise 2h security screening or passport check queue. Maybe you're pulled over for a routine check, or 2, or 3. Maybe you have 1kg over weight for your hand luggage and they expect you to check it in for extra cost while others are allowed with oversize luggage. Maybe they keep changing the gate 2-3 times and you have to constantly be alert and ready to move around the airport. Maybe your flight is late 1h or 7h. Maybe you have to sit in a crowd with dozens or hundreds or people in the (off)boarding area. And so on. There are just so many more ways to be irritated by air travel.
And that's just before you are on the plane. Seat comfort-wise air travel is probably the worst option. I'm above well above average height so I have to pay extra for a decent (not great) experience, or be ready to do the check-in the first moment it's available, or if there are no sits with extra leg room I'll suffer for hours, or be hit over the knees with the different carts by every inattentive flight attendant if I try to spread towards the aisle, or sit behind someone who reclines their seat the whole way.
There's only so much will you can have to have all these things slide. It's like saying that whenever you get punched in the face you can lean into it to make the experience better. It will still very much suck, just marginally less. And I flew hundreds of times, I tried all the tricks. For average travelers there's a ceiling for their air travel experience and it's in the "hopefully tolerable" range. And I tolerate it because I have no choice but it's objectively a bad experience almost without exception.
I don't get it. Address the feeling, let it wash over you. It won't wash over. It sticks and causes the chemicals in my body to fuck me up completely. I can already tell you that I'm anxious.
Or alternativly you can afford better seats than me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_countr...
On the other hand, I took an Iceland Express flight many years ago, and my knees were uncomfortably pressed against the seat in front.
It does seem to be all over the place.
I’d rather be happier, less stressed, and get there more slowly, than go through all the nonsense. I can always read, work, play a game, or just watch the world go by so the time isn’t wasted (unlike so much of the dead time in a noisy and crowded airport).
It also has the increasingly important benefit of being more environmentally friendly.
Budget airlines and priority boarding are a particular bugbear of mine here. Most people pay for priority boarding just for the extra bag it allows you to take into the cabin. You end up with two thirds of the flight made up of people who have priority boarding. That's great, but there's only so much space in the overhead lockers, so you have everyone queuing up way before boarding starts to avoid having their cabin back checked into the hold at the gate.
The whole process is just... endlessly tedious and wearisome. I'd genuinely rather board a much slower form of transport, like a train, coach, or ferry (or even drive under some circumstances) than deal with being treated like cattle at an airport. The whole experience of airports, and getting to and from them, sucks.
Except with the train, I can just drop myself into the seat 10 minutes from home and go to sleep / work / do other things for those 5 hours without a care in the world.
The biggest quality-of-life improvement for flights, for me, was paying up each way for an emergency exit seat. A secondary benefit that I hadn’t initially considered but turned out to be huge is being able to get in and out of my seat at any time without making the entire row get up or having to get up for others.
