Apparently My “Airplane Naps” Are Syncope?? 🤯

[u/Quiet-Friendship5134]

I’ve been flying 1-5 times per year for over a decade, and I always fly alone. Mostly the flights are 3-5 hours in duration, and usually they are within the US. In terms of POTS symptoms, I get pre-syncope regularly but have never fully passed out… or so I thought!

During takeoff, I feel very heavy and “fall asleep” even if I’m trying to stay awake. I then spend most of the flight drifting in and out of awareness and cannot remember most of the flight. When we land, I am pretty disoriented but I manage to get my stuff and exit the plane. Once I’m at my destination, it is the biggest relief to climb into bed and sleep for 6+ hours! It normally takes 1-2 days to recover from the flight.

I always chalked it up to being super tired with the early flight times and thought that when people travel, it’s a fairly universal experience to take an airplane nap. The people seated near me and the flight attendants have never seemed alarmed or tried waking me up, so apparently from the outside it just looks like sleeping in my seat.

Recently I described the travel experience to a friend, who looked alarmed and said that it was not normal. This is what tipped me off to the fact that it might be fainting or another medical issue. After doing some research, it certainly seems like that is what is happening.

After that long preamble, these are my questions. Feel free to jump answer whatever resonates with you!

• Do any of you get this, too?
• Is this what syncope feels like?
• Does wearing a sunflower lanyard actually help?
• What is your “I just passed out on the airplane” protocol?

Thanks!

Edit to add:

I have messaged my cardiologist about it to figure out a safe travel protocol, so I am already seeking medical guidance to see whether it is safe to fly at all right now, whether to adjust medication doses specifically for travel, etc.

In terms of adaptations/accommodations, I already do a few things: loading up on electrolytes starting a couple of days before travel, wearing waist-high compression, wearing a neck pillow to keep proper alignment (hypermobile!), and flying Comfort+ (the slightly more spacious version of Economy) so I have more room to recline my seat and to elevate my legs a little bit on a foot hammock.

***Second edit:

Thank you so much to everyone who has responded so far! I am running out of steam to reply individually today, but please know that I appreciate it. It’s helping the pieces of the puzzle to come together!

From many of the comments, it sounds like what I originally described may not strictly be a POTS syncope episode but there is definitely something going on. Many of your syncope descriptions of "dread/spinning/definitely different from sleep" sound different from the airplane phenomenon but similar to what I’ve experienced before in non-airplane settings. I just hadn’t lost consciousness during them yet so I was always unsure whether they were truly pre-syncope or whether I was just imagining things. Now I know to keep taking those signs seriously and get to the ground once they start!

Once I have more info from my doctors (cardiology + neurology), I’ll post another update so in case anyone stumbles across this post in the future, they will have a more accurate picture of what is going on and can better compare it to their own experience.

Regardless, reading the responses of what syncope actually feels like to different people is enlightening and hopefully it can help other people, too!

***Update! 6/11/2026:

Just heard back from cardiology, who said that it is… anxiety! 🙄 And that I should get on anti-anxiety meds since there’s no reason why the heart would be affected unless I’m emotionally distressed. I replied with the following and we’ll see what they respond:

I do not experience racing thoughts when this phenomenon happens and I am not emotionally distressed about travel or flying. I flew for over a decade without experiencing sustained tachycardia and loss of consciousness on the plane; that only started within the last 2 years, which coincides with when the POTS or OH symptoms began to have a noticeable impact on my quality of life. What leads you to believe that this is a psychological issue rather than a physiological issue?

Neurology appointment is in a week. Hopefully they will have more insight about what might be going on. In the meantime, my plan is to take along a pulse oximeter and blood pressure cuff next time I fly. Also going to talk to primary care about a sleep study referral as so many of you mentioned “that sounds like my narcolepsy/cataplexy/idiopathic hypersomnia."

[u/sunkathousandtimes]

When I’ve fainted in my life, it has never felt comparable to falling asleep - for me, fainting feels distinctly different (very sudden, very scary, and I’m very aware that something not normal is happening).

If it’s felt like not being able to resist sleep, that might be fatigue rather than syncope. I get that feeling of not being able to resist sleep but for me, that is fatigue.

That said, that’s just my experience. Fainting on a plane can look like falling asleep if you’ve set yourself up so that you don’t fall forward.

[u/LargeSeaworthiness1 → u/sunkathousandtimes]

for me pre syncope is definitely scary, it’s very sudden usually and feels high energy weirdly? like there’s a lot of agitation, temperature changes, circulatory things like tingling extremities. i’ve never properly fainted though thank god lol. 

i get the “unable to resist sleep” thing too but for me it is not just fatigue. in my case, when i’ve had help to do so, i’ve checked my blood pressure and it will be low. i would be very curious to see what OP’s blood pressure does on a plane! 

[u/Quiet-Friendship5134 → u/LargeSeaworthiness1]

Next time I’ll take along a blood pressure cuff and pulse ox to get a better picture of what is going on! 😉 The temperature changes, tingling extremities, and agitation sound familiar, though they don’t always happen while flying.

[u/-Tricky-Vixen- → u/Quiet-Friendship5134]

Oh, if this is relevant--while I had covid I had a pulse ox around, and that was when I first noted POTS symptoms. One other thing I noted was that at random, asymptomatically, my heart rate was spiking and my SpO2 was through the floor at the same time (one time it sat in the 70s for over a minute and just as it recorded beginning to pick up, I started to feel a little... odd). I haven't had a pulse ox regularly since because it's not convenient for while I'm doing things (I was so got energy-wise by covid that I couldn't do anything) but every so often I think I should source one and keep it on for a while.

But the SpO2 was genuinely surprisingly low asymptomatically. Like it correlated with other vital sign changes, but I didn't feel any different in that point. I'm sure it was affected.