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.

What we've noticed is that when people come to us for help, it's. Have to come to us for help. So it's often when there has been a change. So you mentioned getting divorced and then having to do. All of the drive-in instead of sharing the drive-in. And it tends to be, when you're a married couple, you often divide the drive-in up with husband doesn't certain type of drive-in, and you do a certain type of drive-in. So that's the common one. But also when people have moved outta the city, Into the country and so they can no longer rely on public transport. And another one is when people start a family. So before starting a family, you often don't need to drive. You can get away with public transport and things. And then when you have a family, it's a lot easier to be able to drive yourself. So we always see it as this. Enforced change, and that's what makes people seek help. And before then, if they don't need to change, they just sort of cover it up, um, and muddle along in a way.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I was thinking about talking about, and it, it's almost quite technical and scientific, but it really, really matters when you are going through menopause and your hormones disappear. There are hormone receptors for testosterone and estrogen, anti progesterone as well. All over your brain. So all the different, you know, we always talk about them as sex hormones. No, they're not. They're far more than that. In men and women, they make our brains function and the one, one of the places where there's lots of progesterone and testosterone receptors and these hormones are going down is the cerebellum, and that's coordination. It's at the back of your head and it's your coordination and it's your timing. I don't know to what extent that would affect your driving. What do you think?

I mean, massive. Yeah.

Yeah,

Yeah. I, I would've, I would've said, cause it's the coordination part of it isn't, it's, you know, sometimes you are going along and you, you know, you, it's, what are my feet doing? I have that quite, you know, with people that I'm dealing with. It's like, are my feet moving? Aren't they move? Well, okay, I need to do this. And it's just a split second. It is. And that happens.

Yeah, I've heard that. I remember thinking, you know, a, B, C, you know, accelerator Break Clut and going C B A A BBC and having that panic I've driving since I was 21. Um, you know, so it, it just seemed extraordinary to have that blank moment and that fear, and I'm. You know, I wasn't doing it in any other areas of my life in, in, in that same way, but literally a, a complete disconnect of brain from feet, actually.

Yeah. Yeah. I what meant to do this, but it's.

Yeah.

They've been working on autopilot for all these years where you haven't had to give it a thought once you've got to grips with driving and then it's almost like a stutter, isn't it? Where the, the autopilot has stopped and left you to think about it and you haven't had to think about it for years.

Yeah. And the other bit of your brain, also lots of hormone receptors all empty suddenly is your amygdala, which along with the hippocampus and all these things is your center for your anxiety, which I'm sure other people have talked about. But you know, if that is not getting the fuel it's expecting. That's why we're experiencing panic and that's why we're experiencing panic in, in the middle of the night. And one of the things I didn't particularly deal with when I was driving, cuz I mostly had hot flushes at night, but why, if you get a hot flush while you're driving, I don't know if that really, really puts you off. I mean, do you stop.

I'll to ask you. Yeah, you're gonna, and I certainly, if there's been an incident, so if I've been driving and something's happened, so somebody's cut me up, or you've made a little mistake actually. You go hot and cold. Anyway. And of course as soon as you get that sort of like that emotional hot and cold that runs through you, that triggers a hot flash like that.

Yeah.

And, and so yeah. And it is just a case of carrying on because you have to, in your drive in really, it's trying to focus your attention at least with a hot flush if you are experienced in them, is that you do know that they will pass, Or certainly in my experience anyway, and I must admit I haven't, I'm not at that high end of the scale that lots of women talk about. So for me, in my experience, I know that my hot flashes will pass. They will probably pass. If I can focus on something else, then I might not even notice when it finishes. Um, I certainly notice when it's there, but I don't notice it finishing.

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