You're listening to the Driving Confidence podcast for drivers who want to be calm and confident on the road. We will be sharing tips, stories and advice to beat driving nerves and anxiety and build your driving confidence. Whether you are just starting out as a learner or have had your driving licence for years, if you want to transform how you feel about driving, this podcast is for you. While we're on a season break, we're sharing with you some bonus shorts 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 73, Anxious Hormones, exploring the links between hormones and mystery driving anxiety, with guest Kate Muir. And we've clipped this into several small shorts, all around five minutes each. This episode is a perfect listen if you are someone or if you know someone who is experiencing symptoms of perimenopause or menopause.

It's so interesting that the crossover between sort of psychiatry and medicine of driving lessons, it's just like you wouldn't, you wouldn't have thought it, and I wouldn't have thought this a few years ago, but now, we're putting in the picture together, you know, and, and I can see from what you are saying and what I'm saying, that, you know, it could be really useful. It could be a really useful thing to write about actually. Um, and do a piece as well. Yeah.

Yeah, I think, I think the more, like I say, the more I was looking into over the last couple of weeks since I've been in touch with you, the more I've just been thinking, oh, I really think there could be something here. I really, really think we need to do a bit more so and do some signpost on our website. And obviously this podcast episode, we're so grateful for it to you for coming on and helping us. Talk about it because you've got the information.

Actually, I've also got a great resource for you, which is an app that is called The Balance Menopause App. And it's three and a million women have downloaded it and it's got absolutely super scientific information that's correct, from Dr. Louise Newso. And some of it's without H R T and some of it's with H R T and it tackles, you know, anxiety and meditation and you know, all the, so it tackles all the options cuz obviously some people will use other options, but it's really worth recommending to people. It's quite a simple thing to say and they can chat what's going on with them. And, you know, track their anxiety, track their periods, track the end of their periods, whatever it is, and get, get a feeling for what's, what's happening and then check what the kind of scientific medical correct answers are. So, so balance, menopause app, really simple. Yeah.

Fantastic. Yeah, that sounds like a great thing for us. To signpost in our resources and sounds like an easy one for you to write an instruction. Well, this is what I was just about to say. I said, have you seen this app? Yeah,

Yeah.

Fantastic.

actually for men, um, the person I was talking about, who was the doctor who was talking to me about the lorry drivers, he's called Jeff Foster and he's written a book called Man Alive and a huge, it's about men's health. Um, and a huge part of it is about testosterone deficiency, what to do about it, how to spot it. Um, really useful tool for mine as well.

Long cause I'm, I'm, it's, it's, it's, we all share the roads together, don't we? You know, and this is, again, if we all help each other, like things like this plus drive, it's, yeah. It's, it's gotta help. It's got, yeah. You're a community on the road. Yeah, we are.

I think this, this will kick off a huge conversation. I'm really keen to put it up on my, Instagram, on Twitter and see if lots of people respond and what they say. And then we might learn something more, I think from women's experiences. Cuz one of the things that's not happening with, with all this people's research and this and that is people are not listening to women. And the minute you start listening to them or do a survey or see what their answers are. We all learn more and, and get a feel that we're not alone. Cause I think not feeling alone about this is quite important as well. I'm feeling better about it.

I think just talking about like, like I don't think 10 years ago anything like this would've happened, would it? You wouldn't have spoke about it.

Yeah. I.

Yeah, definitely. And you know, that is one of our driving messages through the whole of the podcast for people with driving anxiety is that they are not alone. That this is a really common problem that lots of people don't talk about. So it's got so many similarities, with the perimenopause, menopause, the way that people didn't talk about it, they kept it a secret. They kept it to themselves. So yeah, very common themes there. You are not alone.

Right. Well, I'm glad we.

So, Kate, when we got in contact with you, was there anything that you thought, oh, I really want to talk about that, or I hope they ask me about this. Is there anything that we haven't asked you?

No, I, the only thing we haven't discussed is losing your car keys, which is obviously a menopausal symptom. Leaving your car care keys in the fridge, losing your phone, putting your phone in the freezer. That is also a symptom of brain fog that everyone reports. But apart from that, um, I think we've covered a lot of interesting ground actually. I, I think, I think a lot of people will be reassured by this.

Fantastic. And then on a last note. Kate, can you cast your mind back to when you learned to drive? What did you find the most difficult about learning to drive?

Uh, I don't really know my left from my right. I mean, it has remained a problem. I've got better, uh, but I'm not great. And one, one of my failed driving tests was turning right when I should have turned left. I passed my driving test third time.

You're definitely not alone on that one either. Great. So Kate, where can people find you? I think you mentioned your, your Instagram was again, um,

It's Meno scandal, all one word, uh, and also pill scandal. Now I've got two, one for the menopause, one for the pill, and I've got a website. Uh, Kate mu.co uk. You can get hold of me there and send me messages there and things like that, but I also get lots of messages on, on the Instagram, and I'm Twitter as well, one, it's quite simple.

Thank you for listening. Find out about the different ways that you can work with us on our website www. confidentdrivers. co. uk and begin to transform the way you feel about driving.