How Can I Manage Road Rage?
By Donna Stark
Do you tend to lose control while driving and find yourself honking your horn, tailgating the car in front of you, slowing down to make the person behind you slam on their brakes, yelling at the top of your lungs, or giving the unsuspecting drivers on the road a not-so-nice gesture or two? If so, you may be suffering from a condition called road rage. Road rage occurs when our frustrations with traffic or our stress over road conditions spill out, causing us to react to the situation with intense rage. And while we all may have experienced varying degrees of road rage throughout our lives or have been a victim of road rage ourselves, the best thing to do from this point forward is to learn how to manage or avoid it.
Astonishing Road Rage Facts
Aggressive drivers and road rage incidents are causing serious problems on our roads. While some of these situations never amount to anything more than a few choice words and a couple of obscene gestures, there have been many incidents that involve intentional tailgating, bumping, blocking, and cutting off cars. And if that’s not bad enough, you can add road rage shootings to the list too! According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, half of the drivers who are a victim of road rage tend to respond with aggressive driving themselves. So, what can you do when you find your blood is starting to boil while driving? How can you prevent a road rage attack? Take a look at the following helpful strategies.
Establish Routine Chiropractic Care
Unfortunately, there is no end to the amount of stress that can permeate our lives. In today’s world, tensions run high, and many of us are constantly battling against emotionally charged situations. The level of stress we are dealing with at any moment plays a vital role in how well we handle our temper, mood, and mental well-being. That’s the bad news, but the good news is that routine chiropractic care may help! Regular chiropractic adjustments can help minimize stress, stabilize mood swings, and ease the tension that fills your body. By helping you maintain increased balance in those specific aspects of your life, the likelihood of you blowing off steam and becoming an angry driver while on the roads may be reduced.
Identify Your Triggers
Do you know what specifically triggers road rage? Road rage can be triggered by a lot of different things for a lot of different people, and because of this, it can be difficult to discern what might upset one person or another. This is why it is so important to at least have an idea of what some of these triggers may be and to identify your own. If you are constantly finding yourself getting upset on the road, take a look at the following suggestions. They may be just enough to help you avoid road rage yourself and deal with other road rage drivers.
- Allow more time to get to your destination
- Give other drivers space to merge with you
- Obey posted speed limits
- Don’t tailgate or follow other drivers too closely
- Resist negative interactions (avoid eye contact if you need to)
- Pay attention to the rules of the road
- Avoid distracted driving
Remember, you may not be able to control everything, but you can control yourself and your reactions! However, if things do get dicey on the road, your best course of action is to retrieve the other person’s license plate number, have a passenger call for help (you can also pull over and do this if you are alone), or drive to your local police station.
Make It Not About You
It’s hard not to take things personally sometimes, isn’t it? Whether we like it or not, there are sure to be times when we view certain experiences only through our own lens. That doesn’t mean we do it intentionally, but it can happen, and the way to get around that is to pause, stay calm, and step out of your own world. Perhaps the best way to deal with road rage is to think about the times when you were rushing home to a sick child or when you couldn’t think clearly because you were going through a horrible breakup. Try to find the grace for those around you that you wished you had received in instances like those. It may help you become a more compassionate driver and could take a lot of those unnecessary emotions off the road.
Preventing Road Rage
It can be extremely frustrating and very stressful at times to drive on our busy streets, highways, avenues, and boulevards. We have all seen or heard in the news how something so inconsequential can turn into something incredibly dangerous due to road rage. Both parties must recognize their destructive behaviors and remember what’s really important in life because doing so can easily prevent life-changing events from occurring.
The information, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material contained on this page are for informational purposes only. The purpose of this post is to promote broad consumer understanding and knowledge of various health topics, including but not limited to the benefits of chiropractic care, exercise and nutrition. It is not intended to provide or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your chiropractor, physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this page.