Driving anxiety is a form of mental disorder in which sufferers displays irrational fear and anxiety towards road driving. The exact cause of driving anxiety is unknown and indeed, most people with driving anxiety have no clue as to why it happens to them.

If you suffer from driving anxiety, you may finding yourself avoiding certain road environments and avoid them whenever possible. For example, you may avoid driving on highways, bridges, hill or even a busy street.

Driving anxiety can be a very disruptive condition and left untreated, it can even cause you to stop driving completely.

In addition to driving related phobias, sufferers can also suffer panic/anxiety attacks while driving. You could be driving normally but suddenly, your palm start sweating, your heart start racing and you start breathing heavily. Scary, irrational thoughts flood your mind and overwhelms you completely. A few more anxiety attack episodes and it is not hard to imagine why sufferes stop driving altogether.

The most important step in dealing with driving anxiety is to confront them and not give in to your fear. Giving in to your anxiety will only serve to reinforce your fear, making it more difficult to break out of your driving anxiety. This is a vicious cycle, an anxiety "loop", where you fears keeping feeding off itself - creating more fear and anxiety.

Thus, it is important to keep driving, not because you have to, but because you WANT to.

Naturally, the above is easier said than done. If you are driving alone, it might be a good idea to get someone to accompany and assist you. Having someone around can be a very reassuring thing; make full use of it until you feel confident enough to drive on your own.

Another way to tackle anxiety while driving is to focus on positive, calming thoughts when you feel your anxiety coming on. If you are finding it difficult to do that, you could also focus on finding ways to distract yourself from these negative thoughts.

Talk to the person beside you (if they are around), listen to music (focus on the lyrics and sing along mentally), etc. The main idea here is to "condition" your mind to resist giving in to your fears and eventually, you would be less sensitive to it.

Learn how you can get over your driving anxiety and enjoy a peaceful, stressful drive on the road today!