A panic attack on a motorway can be a scary experience.
Many people are baffled as to why they suddenly got this fear. They’ve never had any kind of driving anxiety or fear of driving before so why now?
I’m a driving anxiety expert who works online with people all over the world so let me explain why you have this problem and how to get over it.
Common symptoms of a panic attack on the motorway
Many people say they experience symptoms such as:
- Sweaty palms
- Feeling dizzy
- Eyesight going blurry or fuzzy
- The need to urgently pull over
- Feeling worse when there is nowhere to stop
- A sudden urge to exit the motorway at any cost
- Feelings of dread, doom or disaster
These can feel very unpleasant, but there is rarely anything actually wrong with you physically.
Seeing a doctor or optician (optometrist) is important to rule out anything that could be wrong, but the vast majority of people I work with found that going down that route only led to doctors, psychologists, opticians and many other experts being baffled about what is causing it.
To be clear, you must rule out physical and medical causes because I’m not a doctor. Don’t be surprised if they can’t find anything and tell you it’s all in your head, though!
Watch the videos below, which explain more about common symptoms you may have experienced.
Are you scared of a panic attack happening again?
Most people say that they aren’t scared of driving; what scares them is the thought of having another panic attack while they are driving because they might lose control.
This is understandable and what I’m talking about on this page. You can refer to it as a panic attack, driving anxiety, vehophobia or many other things.
Whatever you call it, this problem can have a devastating impact on your life.
Will it happen again?
It probably will, and it rarely just goes away.
I say this from having worked with hundreds of people who had panic attacks, who all just left it, hoping it’d get better and that it was a one-off.
You’ll usually find the panic happens again the next time you’re in the same situation, and it often gets worse over time.
In many cases, the panic will spread to other areas of your driving. What starts as fear only on fast roads can spread to slower roads, bridges, and even when being a passenger.
It can even spread to other things, and happen whenever you enter a busy shopping centre or when you have to give presentations at work.
This might sound worrying, but here’s something you probably don’t know:
You’ve had this problem for years!
Driving anxiety is actually an old problem you’ve had for years, which has just shown itself. It may be that you’ve never had any feelings like this before, or you may have had them, but they’ve only shown as a fear of heights or something else.
Learn more about this in the point below, What a panic attack really is.
The impact it can have on your life
Some people think driving anxiety is funny. They laugh at people who say they’ve got it and tell them to man up, grow a pair and get on with it.
That useless advice only shows that they have no idea what they’re talking about.
Many people I work with report it affecting their lives in ways such as:
- Feeling embarrassed and humiliated
- Hiding the problem by making up stories about why they can’t drive
- Having to call someone to come and drive them home
- Losing their job or being unable to get a promotion
- Not wanting to pass it on to their children
Don’t worry, because you can get over this!
What won’t fix a panic attack on a motorway?
There are all kinds of “experts” online who think they can fix driving anxiety.
Many of them are not qualified, have no experience teaching people to drive and have no idea what they’re talking about.
Everyone is different, and everyone has a different cause for their problem. These things may work for some people, some of the time, but rarely will they do anything for most people.
Exposure therapy
Exposure therapy is when you go out driving and force yourself to battle through the situation that scares you.
Putting yourself on the road and forcing yourself into danger is a stupid thing to do, yet it’s something I hear recommended all the time.
I mean, come on, does it even sound like a good idea?!?
Unlike most therapists, I have been in a car with hundreds of anxious drivers, and I’ve seen the damage exposure therapy can cause – quite literal damage!
Even when people claim a result from using exposure therapy, all they have done is push the problem elsewhere. If your mind makes you feel bad when you drive, then it’s no good just fighting it head-on.
You need to find out what it’s saying to you; otherwise, it’ll just think, “Oh well, if you’re not going to listen to me when I give you this driving anxiety, I’ll just start you smoking instead.”
I have worked with many people whose jaws hit the floor when they go back and trace the way they started having other problems when they attempted to push through with exposure therapy. They have never before linked exposure therapy to other problems.
Learn more about this on my page about exposure therapy for driving, which has videos explaining it in more detail.
Eating, blood sugar levels and caffeine
I have to laugh when I hear “experts” talking about how eating bananas stops driving anxiety.
You’ve probably also read about how blood sugar levels can cause anxiety. Or maybe you’ve heard the one about how caffeine causes it.
All of those things are nonsense.
Caffeine can help to bring on an initial attack, but that wasn’t the cause of it. What happens there is that the caffeine puts you into a heightened state of alert, which then triggers repressed problems in your life to bubble up to the surface.
Not drinking as much caffeine can help reduce stress levels in general, but it’s highly unlikely to stop your driving anxiety. There’s an easy way for you to test the caffeine theory for yourself…
Getting a good night’s sleep
Yes, that’s all you need to do. Just have a good sleep the night before, and you’ll feel fine, right?
Wrong because it doesn’t work!
This is a pathetic solution for people who are just guessing at what the problem is because they don’t know.
So what does work then?
In order to understand what works and how to overcome driving anxiety truly, you first must understand what the problem really is.
Let’s compare a few theories mentioned on this page to what really works.
You overcome panic attacks when driving by:
- Eating bananas.
- Forcing yourself to drive, no matter how dangerous it is.
- Having a good sleep.
- Finding the cause of it and working on that.
Notice how point four sounds very different to the others!
Let’s leave behind what doesn’t work and move on with what does.
It’s nothing to do with driving
The first thing to understand is that your panic attack has nothing to do with driving.
Driving is only what triggers these feelings. What you’re experiencing is actually a problem from many years ago, usually something from your childhood.
I know this can sound strange if you are just starting to look into this, so let me explain.
I have been one of the UK’s top driving instructors for over 20 years. I’m a down-to-earth person who doesn’t believe in magic and people who claim to have healing powers etc.
Lots of people came to me with driving anxiety and I was frustrated that after many failed attempts with exposure therapy for driving anxiety, I couldn’t help people.
This led me to go and spend several years studying hypnosis, hypnotherapy and how the mind works. When I was first told that driving problems went back to childhood events, I scoffed!
“How can a problem from someone’s childhood cause them a problem driving?” I thought. Over the next few years, I learnt exactly how it works, so let me share that knowledge with you now.
What a panic attack on a motorway really is
You may be wondering why a panic attack came out of nowhere. The answer is that it hasn’t!
The panic you feel now when you’re driving on a motorway is an old problem from years ago that is stuck.
Your mind has no concept of time, so it doesn’t understand that today isn’t 30 years ago.
It’s like how when you listen to an old song, it takes you back to a younger age. You start to smile and say, “I remember when this song came out!”
There you go: your mind thinks it’s still that time, and that’s why you’re smiling and reliving those old emotions and feelings in the present.
Your panic attack on a motorway is an old emotion that once served a purpose. The problem is that you have no need for this today, yet it’s still faithfully doing its job all these years later, thinking that it’s helping you. Watch the video at the top of this page to learn more about this.
Learn more about how driving anxiety starts on my page, How to Overcome Driving Anxiety.
How to overcome a panic attack on the motorway
The way you overcome panic attacks on a motorway is to find what the problem really is.
Once you find this memory or event from years ago and work through it, your problem will be gone and you’ll be free to drive on motorways again!
I recommend you do this with a professional therapist such as myself who specialises in this exact problem. Some therapists have a huge menu of things they do from a fear of spiders to public speaking. They are what we call generalists and just have a go at fixing anything.
Driving anxiety is all I work with all of the time. I can often get to the root cause of the problem faster than someone that doesn’t have my years of experience. In some cases, I have helped people overcome this issue in as little as 20 minutes!
Can’t I just do it myself?
Although it’s possible to overcome the problem on your own, it’s unlikely.
The problem can be hard for you to see yourself, and you can’t see the wood for the trees. You also probably aren’t a trained hypnotherapist and don’t know how the mind works.
Even if you are, it’s still virtually impossible to solve your own issues. That’s because you have to act as both the therapist and client at the same time, which is not easy!
We live in an age where lots of people think they can just jump online and find the answer to anything.
Need some open-heart surgery? Why pay for the operation or wait months when you can just learn how to do it yourself online?
If you’re serious about overcoming panic attacks on the motorway, then you need to work with an expert to give yourself the best chance of success.
How to fix it
Take one of my driving anxiety courses to fix your fear.
Visit my YouTube channel to see more videos on driving anxiety or visit my page on the fear of driving on motorways for more help.