Why You Feel The Urge To Find Your Gate When You Get To The Airport

Whether you fly every week for work or a few times a year for vacation, air travel can be anxiety-inducing. Not only do you have to make sure your bag is checked properly, but also get your boarding pass, go through security and get to your gate.

If you’re reading this, then you might also be that person who always feels the need to “check” your gate when you get to the airport ― a non-clinical phenomenon we’re dubbing “gatexiety.” Even if the number is explicitly written on your boarding pass or in your airline’s app, you just have to see it with your own eyes before you can do anything else — use the bathroom, purchase a last-minute magazine, or grab a quick snack from the food court.

Sound familiar? We spoke with experts to figure out why you feel the strong urge to find your gate and what you can do if this habit is stressing you out:

At the most basic level, you probably check the gate at the airport when you arrive to help ease your anxiety.

Jennifer Kelman, a licensed clinical social worker, said some people “develop rituals to ward off nervous energy anxiety.”

“We also experience a loss of control while flying, and checking the gate, checking a boarding pass, making sure you have all of your travel documents are in order may provide a feeling of control while traveling,” Kelman added.

Others may check the gate because they want to gauge how much time they have to use the bathroom and get snacks while accounting for walk time. For all you know, your gate could be at the opposite end of the terminal, and that could leave you running to catch your flight if you decide to grab a last-minute cup of coffee.

TikTokers Joe and Brent Philips perfectly summed this up in a recent viral video. The couple said they almost missed their flight because they didn’t check their gate before boarding.

“And that is why you check to make sure the gate exists every time,” the pair joked at the end of the video. The post got more than 1 million views and hundreds of comments.

According to Kelman, looking for your gate isn’t necessarily an unhealthy thing. However, if it becomes more of a compulsion, then it might be important to look a bit deeper to see how anxiety might be affecting your life.

“It’s normal to feel some anxiety about a process you’re not completely comfortable with, as long as you can still get to where you’re going without too much…