Well, we were on a season break. We sharing with you some bonus shores from an old episode. Normally we create one short for each episode. For this break, we focus in on one episode in particular, which is episode 72. Rewiring the brain understanding and overcoming driving anxiety with Joshua Fletcher. And we've clipped this into several small shorts, all around five minutes each. This episode is probably the episode that we share the most with those of you who gets in touch and are asking for help. So, if you have driving anxiety, there's probably something for you in one of these shores.

So Josh, obviously we deal with driving. How would you describe, driving anxiety? I suppose that's a massive question to start with, but.

Yeah, for me, there's two main reasons people develop driving anxiety. The first one is the conventional reason. Uh, these are usually people that have probably had a bad experience behind the wheel, whether it's driving themselves or whether it's being a passenger or witnessing something. Um, maybe it's someone else having an accident. And, uh, I call it a conventional fear and phobia. You would do, wouldn't you? If you've seen something, experienced something, your threat response, the amygdala in your brain will remember that. And so the next time you see a car, you'll be like, ah, you know, I'm gonna remind you of that. Some people have been in quite serious accidents. They'll be like, they'll have, uh, traumatic memories and, and reminders of that, but that's quite rare. The, the vast majority of people were driving anxiety, however, have not been involved in accidents. And as such, there are people who developed a form of inwards disordered anxiety. Um, which has agoraphobic tendencies. And I'm also this person as well, cuz I've also been there. I did not sit behind a wheel for years. Um, and this was because I was afraid of how I would feel. You know, you've got driving anxiety when you constantly behind the wheel and dictated by what ifs you're afraid of. Mostly the anxiety itself. So I'm gonna avoid this a road just in case I panic. I'm not gonna drive in the fast lane of the motorway just in case I freak out and turn into the central embankment and cause a 50 car pile up and, and whatever. And the stakes high in this. I'm driving my kids and driving my family, I'm driving whatever. And it often overlaps with the agoraphobia. Uh, and that is I can only do a certain amount of things. Uh, so a lot of people, most people with driving anxiety can actually drive, but they only drive certain routes at a certain time of day, a certain distance. They'll avoid certain roads. Uh, again, this was me, and. Some people just avoid it completely. But why I say it links to agoraphobia is that agoraphobia is the belief that if we leave a safe space or a space outside of our, what we believe that we can control ourselves in something awful might happen. Um, and for me personally, that's what happened. I wouldn't drive outside my town. It all started where I started avoiding the fast lane of the motorway and then the motorway altogether, and then a roads. And then I'd avoid doing certain things I, I'd then, I'd avoid being a passenger in a car and then I'd avoid doing every, and it slowly just started to develop, very similar to agoraphobia, where if people would avoid going somewhere far away and then they'd come home and et cetera. But yeah, for me, whistle stop tour, that's mostly what I work with, with, with driving anxiety. I wanna work out why are you afraid and is it the actual driving you're afraid of, or is it, I'm afraid of the anxiety itself.

There's so many things in there, so I've never thought about that link with agoraphobia. That's never occurred to me before in all the things that I've looked at and read and all the people we've worked with, but yes, absolutely that fear of going outside of your safe space. Yeah, I did. Did you talk of that then? Did you feel safe within the car?

For me it was, I used to really, I, I love, enjoy, I enjoy driving again, by the way. So if you're someone who used to enjoy driving didn't and started driving, I love driving. Um, I think I said to you before I press record. I just recently drove to Portugal from Manchester, and it was wonderful journey. Um, but back in the, in the midst of driving anxiety, I would not like even looking at the car, even someone inviting me to go. Um, I I, my driving anxiety was so bad I wouldn't even get taxis. yeah, it was pretty bad.