How to Reduce Anxiety While You're Driving

One of the hardest things to deal with as a driver is anxiety. Anxiety can feel perfectly rational to the person dealing with it, but it comes from an irrational place. Often, anxiety can feel like the world is closing around you and it makes you feel like you’re going to die. When you’re driving, the last thing that you need is an anxiety attack. 

Fear is a very difficult emotion to overcome, and there are some people that experience massive anxieties while they are driving and it shows up in various ways. Some people panic about riding in a car while others experience fear on the road as they try to keep themselves out of danger. The body goes into fight or flight mode and you start to see all of the threats around you. Below, we have some suggestions on how you can reduce your anxiety while you are driving.

• Seek the help of a therapist. There are some therapists out there who will recommend cannabis for anxiety, but the last thing you need to worry about is how to get weed smell out of the car. While you should never smoke while you are driving, it can help your anxiety after the fact. What you want is to be able to go home and relax from the anxiety that comes with driving, and the help of a therapist can also help you to overcome your fears in many different ways.
• Face it. They say that when you fall off a horse you should jump straight back on, and the reason for that is because practice can help you get out of the habit of anxiety. If your anxiety is so pronounced that you can’t even get into a car, then you need to take baby steps with your anxiety. It can start with using simulation cars in an arcade, and then chipping away at those steps to get you back behind the wheel properly. Take your time with this but facing your anxiety is probably the best thing that you can do for yourself.
• Don’t add to it. If being in a car is driving your anxiety, let it help you become the best driver possible. Drive within the speed limit, signal before you turn, always check your blindspots – all of these things are safety things to do, but they can also increase anxiety. Insure that you’re not a dangerous driver and you won’t have to worry about any of this while you drive
• Take additional driving courses. You want to be sure that you are correct on the road and that sometimes means taking an additional course to help you boost your current driving ability. There are pass plus courses and motorway driving courses, night driving courses and more. Whatever it is that is pushing your anxiety to the limit can be eliminated if you are willing to get behind the wheel with an experienced instructor and try again.