hello so in this video we're taking a look at why driving anxiety is so much more difficult
to overcome than other fears and phobias my name's paul and i work with people online
all over the world to help them overcome their fear of driving and many people ask me why is
it so hard to get rid of this compared to other things that i overcame quite easily
so let's have a look at five reasons number one is that when you're driving a car you are actually
in control of the vehicle so let's compare this to someone who's got a fear of flying
if you're scared of flying all you've really got to do is go and sit in a plane and be flown
somewhere now there are ways you can get around this even though they're not ideal you can maybe
drink alcohol before the flight you can take sleeping pills so you can sleep during the flight
and you might even wear some kind of mask over your eyes so you can't see anything out the window
you can't drink alcohol take sleeping pills and wear a mask to cover your eyes when you're driving
because that is of course dangerous so when you're in control of the vehicle there is more going on
now let's just be honest and realistic about this when you're driving a car you can quite
easily hurt or kill people that's not stretching the imagination to think well yes people do die
in car crashes every day and yes there are plane crashes as well but they are much much rarer and
statistically you're far safer flying than you are driving the second reason it's harder to overcome
is because it's something that you do every day most people will drive every single day of every
month of every year it's just something they do very often you might have one or two days off a
week but it's something you regularly do compare that again to flying most people will probably
only fly once or twice a year so the problem with the fear of flying is quite easy to avoid because
you simply don't really have to do it that much and with driving you do because it's there in your
face every day and that brings us on to reason three it's very hard to avoid driving so even
if you walk or cycle or catch a bus or something like that or a train you may be in a situation
where you're at work one day and the boss asks you to go out with someone else in a car to go
and pick someone up or something or to go and do some work somewhere else in a different department
so it's really hard to avoid driving because it could come up at any moment anywhere any
day it's not like with flying again you are very unlikely to be sitting in an office and the boss
walks in and says hey quick i've got a private jet outside i need you to go and fly somewhere
so it's actually much harder to avoid driving than other things the fourth reason that driving
anxiety is harder to fix is that it's actually this is something many people don't realize
it's the final stage of another problem if you've watched other videos of mine and i've got over a
hundred now on the fear of driving you've probably heard me say that driving anxiety has nothing to
do with driving your driving anxiety is a symptom of another problem so even when people come to me
and they say i've only had this driving anxiety for a few months so it should be easier to fix
what you might not realize is the driving anxiety is very often the final stage of other things
so although you've only just got that the real problem is something you've had for years so you
might say well yo it's only just begun so can we just get rid of it quickly yes we can but you need
to understand that the driving anxiety is never the issue and i can guarantee you this 100 of the
time your fear of driving has nothing to do with driving and that brings us on to the fifth and
final point is that the fear of driving causes so many other problems it's a bit like we mentioned
earlier on you can easily avoid flying if you're scared of snakes and spiders you can quite easily
avoid those depending on where you live in the world but a fear of driving has a knock-on effect
on so many other parts of your life so for example it's quite common for people to have arguments
with a partner over the driving it's common for people to have arguments with the family because
family often just don't understand the problem and just say look you're being silly just get on with
it just do it stop wasting your time i've known family members to keep driving the person with
anxiety and saying look just learn from me it's fine there's nothing to be scared of that kind
of stuff and exposure therapy does not work for fever driving and if ever you've been for things
like cbt counselling traditional talk therapy none of that will touch driving anxiety because they
always tell you to do this stupid thing where they say drive a bit one day then drive a bit further
the next day and a bit further the next day what we call a fear ladder and the fear ladder is when
you're slowly climbing the lads with fear slowly exposing yourself to more and more danger with the
idea being that you slowly get used to it but the big problem with that is it doesn't work and i've
done another video talking specifically about that but the reason it doesn't work is because
the driving isn't the issue so anyone who tells you to drive a bit more a bit more a bit more
they don't know what they're talking about because they're working on the symptom
not the real problem check out these other videos on the screen now and if you want help to overcome
your fear of driving contact me through my website 1stdrive.com or use the links around this video
thanks for watching and as always i'll see you again soon for more videos