I think for me, definitely breathing techniques a hundred percent. Um, I've done it for so long, even before I started doing, me training with exhale. That's what brought me to it, to be honest, was I noticed the power of it. Just something so simple as just breathing. Just regulating your heart rate. Just calm down, not allowing yourself to just become this, ball of panic and stress when something comes up that maybe you wasn't expecting. So for me, always breathing, that's, that's definitely where that started from. It's definitely where we always go to. Do sometimes have music on in the card as well. So we use certain music with different types of frequencies, like calming frequency, so I have been putting that on low in the car, and that seems, people seem to like that.

Mm. Yeah, I use music as well occasionally. Yeah. And I, I use the breath as well, Steph. It, like you say, it's very powerful, because it, it brings people out of that fear response, doesn't it? The way that it actually affects the body. It affects the nervous system on a biochemical level. It's absolutely fascinating. But also what I find with this awareness is it's really useful for them to just, I, I call it like checking the weather. Like what's the weather like? And, and sometimes they're holding their breath or clenching their shoulders and their jaw, or they're holding the steering wheel so tight they, they can't even move. They turned into a robot because, they're so tense. But the trouble is, as you just said, the awareness part is the key part because we so often we're doing these things and we don't realize we're doing it. And I think for us as well as ADIs, it's useful to have the awareness to observe what's happening. And I'll say to them, Oh, you know, we remembering they're, Oh, sorry. Oh yes. I'm holding my breath again. Oh, yes. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm clenching again. So, yeah, it's so important, isn't it, the way we feel behind the wheel that, checking the weather, that internal weather pattern, Well, how actually am I feeling today? What has it been like before I got in the car? Because often we, we don't even really realize what we're bringing with us into the car.

I like that. I like that check on the weather reference. So we use, when we get to like traffic lights and stuff we say, Reset. Let's just reset. Just like a little jiggle of the shoulders, like you said, where they're holding the wheel like that really tight, just loosening the fingers. So yeah, but I like checking the weather. That's nice. I like that, I'm going to steal that,

go for it. Go for it. I mean, I thought about you guys as well, but even for myself and as an adi, Steph, you know, I have days where I have to check my own weather pattern and the way I feel, what I'm bringing into the car massively affects the lesson. And I think this is why ADIs would be so well to learn about this, because obviously there's reference to it for their own knowledge and information. It's a good thing. It's been so massive for me as an adi I'm a much calmer and a much more compassionate driving instructor with mindfulness. I notice when I'm starting to get a little bit tense or I'm starting to get a little bit frazzled. My patience maybe start to, we thin when I'm starting to feel like that I might be a bit more shorter than I maybe would wanna be. And that's not good either. So I think if we. Have this awareness with this as well that we can, We almost, And the energy you feel it, you know, it comes off, doesn't it? I know with myself, it permeates the atmosphere in the car, if one of you is a little bit off,

I would imagine that's quite strong actually, that you pick up somebody's mood or weather pattern as soon as they get in the car, and it is really important to acknowledge that that works both ways. So students are gonna pick up their driving instructor's mood and driving instructors are gonna pick up their student's mood. So I would imagine that's a really good way to start any lesson actually, is to, before a lesson check in, how am I, how am I feeling, and how is that gonna affect my moods, my emotions, and my driving behavior? And my driving decisions?

Yeah, absolutely.

Definitely, I think has, we're in such a small confined space as well in a car. In some of my training we learned that the nervous system actually does connect with others that close to you. So I think if we get in the car like in that state, it's definitely gonna transfer to other people.

Oh Oh yeah.

Yeah, definitely. And they won't even know why necessarily, and think, why am I having an off. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I say ADIs, I teach, It's like you almost filter this through like by osmosis. It's a funny thing, isn't it? Teaching mindfulness, it's very experiential. You have to do it, don't you? It's bit like yoga. You can't really teach it in a technical sense that you've gotta do it to really appreciate it. And I think as it filters through by osmosis, definitely the way we feel. It's act like you say, it is a very confined space and it's very you. I can feel it and I, I'm very sensitive to, to energies and stuff and when people get in the car, I, I can feel it and I'll. Wow. You know, it's, I can feel when the energy's gone softened, you know? And I said, That feels, that's better, isn't it? And they said, Oh, yeah, yeah, that's better