Can you beat your fear of roller coasters?

Roller coasters are designed to be scary. If you’re remotely afraid of them, you are part of the majority. There’s no one size fits all solution to beat your fear of roller coasters. Each fear may stem from a different aspect of rides. However, we've produced two approaches to overcoming your fear by first exploring why you might have that fear, and secondly, methods to gradually beat it!

Credits:

00:00 Introduction
01:40 Fear of safety
02:57 Fear of intensity
04:03 Fear of going upside down
04:43 Fear of falling out
06:01 Fear of no control
07:03 A previous bad experience
07:54 Always had an underlying fear
09:07 Overcome your fear slowly
13:19 Overcome your fear quickly

[piiinkDeluxe]

mine was a combination of losing control and the fear always being there because i had a mother who would do NONE of these things, she wouldn't even go down a slide with me at a playground out of fear.

what helped me was going with friends who enjoy it and are used to it. and wanting to try new things.
my first upside down coaster was "Python" in Efteling, really smooth ride and I am way less afraid now.
I still need to build up my confidence every time i visit a park and might not dare every ride. but i learned to actually enjoy them.

regarding the control, it's only really fun if you accept the loss of control. My biggest challenge for that were dark rides, I used to avoid them at first.
but i went to Disney in Paris and you can't do anything when you avoid dark rides lol. so with the help of same friends i went. Hyperspace Mountain is one really nice example. I went into it with the mindset of "okay, whatever happens it won't hurt me. and it won't hurt me not to know what happens and i will accept it." so i wasn't tense and it was actually SO much fun! 😄😄 ngl, helped me with letting go of control in real life.

ETA: my friend said "if it's bad it's over in like 2 min. that makes 2 bad minutes of your life. as adults we should be able to deal with that." that convinced me for my 1st big rollercoaster. 😄

[duck]

For anybody who is afraid of coasters and is going to a park soon, just know that your time in the queue line is scarier than the actual ride itself

[MadMovieMakers]

The secret to enjoying roller coasters is to first like trains and then think Thunder Mountain at Disneyland is just a train ride. At least that worked for 5 year old me

[JBatts]

One of the things that helped me the most was pretending that I was in control of the ride, particularly the first drop. If I lean forward and act like I'm pushing the train down the drop, it feels a lot more in control than if I was pushing back against the seat trying to resist the inevitable. It didn't take long to start enjoying the sensations, and once that happened, I got hooked, and now ride everything I possibly can.

[jasperguliker]

Things that helped me overcome my fear:
1. ride your first coaster with a good friend/family member who has already done the coaster.
2. don't look at pov's too much because when you visit the coaster in real life, it looks a lot taller than on the pov.
3. if you are scared of coasters because of the stomach drop: the more coasters you ride, the stomach drop will decrease.
4. Don't stay at one park if you are scared, try to go to a park with rollercoasters that look less scary.

[intrifix]

What was unimaginable for me was that I could somehow go from being utterly terrified of rollercoasters to enjoying them by simply hopping on. And I figure this goes for a lot of people. Yet apparently a lot can happen in 1 minute. I went from "oh fuck no no no I don't want this ffs get me off" to "YAYYYY LETS GO AGAIN". I never thought that would've been possible.

[Thesmokercoaster]

Love coasters. Love coasterbot. Love learning how to encourage people to get over there fears. Win win win

[googlethecat]

For some reason I have panic attacks ONLY on the lift hill and during the first 2 seconds of the first drop. After that, it’s pure bliss and joy for me. But the panic at the beginning is indescribable.

[xdanileel]

Big News: Tom Scott has beaten his fear of roller coasters.

[darknesswolfx]

There’s 2 barriers. The mental and physical. If you can get past these two barriers, you can ride any roller coaster you want. However sometimes one barrier is bigger than the other. For me it was the mental barrier. At some point I wanted to be able to ride any roller coaster I wanted, so I analyzed the track (height comparisons, periods of time, g’s and even recreating the feeling in my head) I decided to try and see it as a bird diving. Once I finally had the courage, I took my chances and just rode it. Now I can ride any roller coaster. This one was behemoth btw.

[ericthomason]

I was scared of going upside down on coasters until February 2019, when I visited Castles n Coasters with my parents. I promised them that I would ride Desert Storm when we were there. I was nervous when I first got on, and the moment the ride dropped, all my fears went away. I hold Desert Storm as a special coaster for breaking my fear of inversions.

[theartisticargonian]

I've been scared of coasters for as long as I can remember for two main reasons:

1: The intensity of the ride and specifically the stomach-dropping feeling you get going down a drop
2: Fear of heights that I've also had as long as I can remember

Earlier this year I went to Alton Towers for the first time and decided I'd push myself to at least go on the family coasters, which I managed much to my surprise! Wicker Man ended up being my favourite ride of the trip despite me being terrified to go on it initially, and I was the only member of my family not screaming at the vertical drop on Th13teen. I've yet to go on anything larger or with inversions though, and honestly don't know if I ever will. But I like going fast and that's good enough for me

[CatsnCoasters]

Great vid with some very useful info. I've not been "scared" of a coaster since riding the big one in 1997. I just love the experience of being "out of control" and being totally immersed.

[akaisha]

Love watching your videos; absolutely HATE riding coasters though. Always have. And trying to explain to someone my whole my why I don't like them has been hard. You put it perfectly in this video: it's the physical sensations I don't like and create intense panic. Now I have the right verbiage to explain it. And what's more, I appreciate you open this by reminding everyone that they don't HAVE to enjoy it and it's not a fear they have to overcome for any reason. Makes me feel way way way better about things.

[williamhoward]

My fear is completely gone. Before my trip to Thorpe, I was scared of basically any launch stronger than Rita, very steep drops like SAW and not much else. I had been to Towers before, when I got on my first non family ride. I chose Nemesis. Was scared to death before but after I found it addicting.

[fterthought]

I think the fear of having no control more stems from the fact that once you're in, they won't stop the ride for you even if you start panicking.
I understand why it would be a hassle to do so, but the thought of having a panic attack while being stuck in a ride while everyone around you just thinks you're just overreacting is just highly distressing for me, and probably others as well.
Especially since so many rides go out of their way to purposefully build tension or cause fear.
I've been able to ride some roller coasters, but just the thought of going on the main few top thrill rides at my local park makes me nervous.

[dingo]

I *thought* I didn't get scared on roller coasters, but then I rode X2. I think it was the combination of the height, the disorientation caused by the rotation and the exposed feeling you get from the wing seats.

Going to Phantasialand tomorrow - don't think there's anything too scary there, but we'll see.

[jaystarr]

*I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS:* Imagine you run as hard and as fast as you can for a good distance. Then you stop. Now right when you stop you feel _different._ Tired, out of breath, sweaty, hot, ect. So you chill for a few minutes...then you're fine. Like you were before you started running. Coasters can be like this as far as feeling different for a while but fine shortly after. You may say "I'll never do that again" but even if you did, you'd be fine.

[Musicalcoasters]

"Pick a small thing that's fairly comfortable." Thoughts to my fellow tall individuals. Try to fit. My fears started when I got airtime as a child that I didn't expect. It just took age mostly for me. Other people and these videos on how I won't fall out helped.

[bean]

I can not stress enough about how much just riding it helps, one time i was shaking in the queue I was so scared, went on it and it was the best feeling ever knowing you just did that and had fun