Road Less Travelled: Reduce Stress Whilst Driving Home

by Martin Mayer, published Thursday, May 4th, 2006 at 5:11 am

“I’m not sure about you but I find driving to work in rush hour traffic to be one of the most stressful experiences of the day. Bad drivers, the monotony of a repeated journey, roadworks and delays and the frustration the whole experience entails often add up to a thoroughly unpleasant journey.” Relaxing music composer, Martin Mayer, looks at the stress that driving causes him and how we can all reduce the effects of this stress.

I have 12 years driving experience here in the UK. I consider myself to be a defensive and focussed driver. I don’t speed or use my mobile phone whilst driving. I try to obey the highway code at all times yet I get extremely frustrated and angry in heavy traffic. This is my driving weakness. I do not vocalise this anger and frustration whilst driving but it must affect the way I drive and definately contributes to stress. I’m not sure about you but I find driving to work (and back home again) in rush hour traffic to be one of the most stressful experiences of the day. Bad drivers, the monotony of a repeated journey, roadworks and delays and the frustration the whole experience entails often add up to a thoroughly unpleasant journey.

As part of my personal journey to a reduced stress lifestyle I have been looking at ways to reduce the effects of stress whilst driving. I have the following goals:

# reduce the stress of rushing by setting off earlier in my car.

# read traffic reports before I make a journey and avoid or prepare for delays.

# learn to accept other people’s failures as an inevitability. (at least don’t get so mad about them)

# use simple relaxation techniques to calm myself should I feel angry or frustrated. For example, repeat a relaxing word to myself or think of a happy, peaceful memory.

# be realistic with my planned journey time. Don’t tell someone 45 minutes when I am at least an hour away. Reduce the pressure.

With these targets I aim to considerably reduce the stress I experience during a journey between work and home. I will keep you posted.

Martin’s personal journal of stress relief can be found at:

http://help-me-relax-and-reduce-stress.blogspot.com/