Every individual must monitor their lifestyle to make sure pressure and stress do not get to them. Everyone has things in their life that cause stress and overall anxiety, and that’s normal.
The trick is figuring out ways to deal with those feelings when they appear.
If stress and pressure are getting to you, there are ways you can tell you’re close to the edge. Road rage is at the top of that list.
If you’re always a second or two away from a road rage incident when you drive, that’s a huge red flag that you need to make some changes in your life.
Let’s talk about what some of those changes could be.
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Get a Different Job
There are all kinds of triggers that can cause road rage. If you’re already mad when you get behind the wheel, it’s not going to take very much to set you off.
Difficult traffic conditions are not going to help matters, either. For instance, maybe you live in a big city like Houston. Houston ranks eighth for traffic congestion nationally.
If you must deal with heavy traffic and congestion during rush hour every day to and from work, you might decide you need to get a different job.
Your job might be okay other than the commute, but if you have an hour each way, that’s ten road-rage-inducing hours during a typical Monday-Friday workweek.
You might look for a job within your field where you can work from home. Many individuals are trying to do that these days if their company will allow them to do so.
You could also try to find a job closer to you if you need to work outside the home. If you have a much shorter commute each day, you have less chance of a road rage incident since you’re cutting down on your drive time.
Start Meditating
Road rage indicates that you have tension bubbling beneath the surface. You can get upset on the road, step out of the car, and punch someone, but you can also have a stroke or heart attack if you can’t find a way to calm down.
Meditation can help many people who feel like their life is out of balance. Even if you don’t necessarily feel that way, road rage incidents or getting close to them are strong indications that’s what’s going on.
You can download a meditation app, or you can start to attend classes where you can learn how to do it. Yoga classes are great places to learn meditation, or you can also learn about it by studying certain martial arts, such as Tai Chi.
Go to Therapy
You might feel like you know some of what’s in your life that’s causing your stress that’s a road rage contributor. You can probably point to specific people or situations that cause you to feel the way you do.
You can go to therapy and talk about those issues you’re having. In some instances, your health insurance will cover it.
If you have health insurance that won’t cover your therapy sessions, or you have no health insurance at all, you can still call various counseling services and talk to someone for free.
That is not as good of a solution as having a therapist who’s dedicated to getting you to a healthier mental space, but it’s better than nothing.
Make Changes in Your Family Relationships
You probably will know it if your road rage stems from family problems. Maybe you and your spouse or partner are arguing a lot, and you know that sends you off to work furious every day.
That’s no way to live, and you must take steps to alleviate that situation. Whether it’s a spouse, partner, child, or some other relative with whom you’re fighting, you must come up with a way to communicate better with them.
You might do that by going to counseling together. There, you can learn coping and communication strategies. You can learn how to talk to each other in respectful ways without resorting to screaming or physical violence.
Make More Drastic Relationship Changes
If you feel like therapy or counseling are dead ends, you might reach a point where you need to make more dramatic life changes.
That could mean walking away from a relationship. You might have to divorce your spouse or separate from them to have some time apart.
It can be tough acknowledging that a relationship is over, but if you’re living with someone, and that’s causing nothing but stress in your life, you need to make a clean break for both of your sakes.
If there are any children involved, you should move apart from each other, so the kids don’t have to watch you fight all the time.
Take a Vacation
You might also relieve some stress by taking a vacation if you can afford one. You can inform your work that you’re under a lot of pressure, or you need a little downtime to clear your head. They need to respect that since mental health is critical.
You can use some of your savings to take a trip somewhere you’ve wanted to go. If you don’t have the cash to do that, a staycation can be just as good.
You can take the time to read some books, play video games, watch movies, or do anything else that relaxes you.
Some people feel like being boiling, stress-filled individuals is the normal way to live your life. It isn’t. If you’ve had a road rage incident, or you feel that one is just around the corner, you have to reevaluate where you are in your life and think about what changes you can make.
Don’t delay in taking action. If you put it off, you might find yourself trading blows with a total stranger in the middle of some busy street, and you never want things to get to that point.
