Driving Anxiety

But you don’t. There’s a part of your mind that sends a very powerful signal of fear. Your heart races. Your stomach clenches. You’re terrified. You can’t get yourself to drive on a highway.

The Driving Anxiety Solution
To use hypnosis to work directly with the part of your mind that’s sending that fear signal. So you have the chance to bring help directly to that subconscious/emotional part of your mind – the part that doesn’t care about all those reasons why you should feel fine. So you have the chance to genuinely SOLVE the problem where it’s happening rather than just talking about it or learning techniques to manage it.

I find –
– Clients get better results when they commit up front to spend the money/time it takes to solve their problem (results aren’t as good when people dabble and  “try hypnosis”).

– Clients get better results when they’re not worried about how much time they’re taking.

– Clients get better results when they’re mid-process and they’re not worried about how much more it might cost them get to the point where they’re successful.

So you’d pay one flat fee to overcome your driving anxiety.  One price, regardless of how many sessions it takes to solve the problem completely.   ‘Solved’ as both defined by and judged by you.  

Fees vary depending on the situation and the severity of the anxiety. Usually they fall somewhere between $2-7k.

Guarantee
I guarantee all driving anxiety work with a half-back refund.  If a client reaches the ten session mark and they’re making good progress, great.  We continue working until the problem is completely solved.  If they’ve done that much work and they don’t feel like they’ve made progress, I guarantee the work by refunding half the fee.

It’s also guaranteed if a client has a problem later on. “Relapses” are rare, but if they ever happen – whether it’s three weeks, three months or three years later – they’re 100% covered.  The client is back here in the office and we resolve whatever we may have missed.

The academic research into driving anxiety says two important things:
– You’re not alone with your driving anxiety
– There are effective steps you can take to safely and comfortably get back on the highway.

Prevalence of driving anxiety
The prevalence of driving anxiety depends on how you define it: since different studies have included people with different ranges of symptoms, no one can say for certain exactly how common driving anxiety is. Still, we know that it is, indeed, common. Mild anxiety while driving is often found to occur at rates over 50% of the population, and one study suggests that the number is as high as 77%.

More severe driving anxiety is slightly less prevalent at around 16%, and between 2 and 6% of the population reports a total avoidance of driving. The most significant number, however, was 3.85% – the tiny percentage of participants in a study who sought professional help for their driving anxiety. If more people experiencing driving anxiety took the simple step of seeking help, overall rates would be far lower.

Forms of Driving Anxiety
Driving anxiety comes in many different forms. For many, driving becomes a trigger for post-traumatic stress disorder after a car accident or other traumatic driving-related incident. But this is not the only way that driving anxieties can develop, and it is common to experience driving anxiety unrelated to a car accident. For some, driving is simply a phobia, just like a phobia of the dark or of spiders, without any decipherable origin. This type of driving anxiety can be just as severe, and have just as large an impact on your daily life, as driving anxiety brought about by a car accident. For still others, some other anxiety or mental health condition might indirectly bring about driving anxiety: frequent panic attacks may make driving difficult or dangerous, a fear of heights may impact your ability to drive on bridges and overpasses, or social anxiety may be triggered by driving in crowded areas. Agoraphobia, the fear of being trapped in a dangerous or embarrassing situation, can cause severe anxiety in many different driving-related contexts.

Impacts of Driving Anxiety
Regardless of its source, driving anxiety can have very real impacts on the way you live your life. Aside from making driving extremely uncomfortable (or preventing it altogether), studies have found that driving anxiety in certain groups correlates with lower levels of mental health and overall well-being. In one such study (focusing on older adults, though its implications are universal), the researchers explain:

when driving anxiety results in a reduction or cessation of driving, older adults may experience limited access to important and enjoyable daily activities such as visiting friends, helping in the community, and satisfying basic needs such as shopping or accessing healthcare, which may affect their mental health and quality of life

Moreover, while a certain level of cautiousness makes you a safer driver, high levels of anxiety can actually make driving more dangerous – a driver consumed in his or her own anxiety will be more prone to making mistakes.

Other Options for Resolving Driving Anxiety
So what can you do to stop driving anxiety’s harmful impacts? Fortunately, there are many well-proven strategies for you to choose from. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a common approach that targets the problematic thought patterns that affect anxious drivers (such as overestimating the risk of an accident), and helps participants adjust those thought patterns. Another approach is treatment through exposure, where participants use relaxation techniques while being exposed to increasingly testing driving scenarios. Recently, exposure treatments have begun to use virtual-reality driving simulations, with some success.

Hypnosis for Driving Anxiety
While not much research has been done on hypnotherapy treatment for driving anxiety, the research that exists has shown positive results. In one case study, after four treatment sessions, the researchers made this conclusion: “although she retained some anxiety, sufficient progress was established for her to make a long distance trip that she [had] been avoiding for a number of years. Reviewing progress a year later, she reported that residual anxiety had diminished and that progress had continued.” A meta-analysis of 15 studies of hypnosis for anxiety concluded that “the average participant receiving hypnosis reduced anxiety more than about 79% of control participants.” More generally, a 2019 study called hypnosis “a highly effective intervention for anxiety.”