- Top 8 ways to calm road rage
- Practical tips to keep your cool while driving
- Expert road rage help from UK academics and therapists
- Road rage is addictive - and can shorten your lifespan
- Diet and gut health can play a key role
These are the Top 8 ways drivers can calm their feelings of road rage - and turmeric lattes could be part of the solution!
With more than 40 million vehicles on UK roads, it’s not surprising that tempers can fray.
But there are ways in which you can quiet your inner anger and potentially spare yourself a motoring prosecution - or worse.
A panel of experts and academics have shared their road rage advice with Select Car Leasing, the UK’s largest vehicle leasing broker.
The issue itself is almost ubiquitous, with a Select Car Leasing survey (of 1,000 UK driving licence holders) revealing how almost 1 in 5 motorists (18%) experience road rage at least once a week.
1. Understand that road rage can be addictive - and can seriously harm health
Road rage can act like a drug, keeping you hooked. Once you recognise that fact you can attempt to wean yourself off it to end the vicious cycle.
That’s according to therapist Mike Fisher, founder of the British Association of Anger Management (BAAM).
Mike, author of the book Beating Anger, explains: “Statistically speaking, we’re the biggest road ragers in Europe. These expressions of rage might feel cathartic, but they can also have a huge impact on your immune system due to an over-production of the hormone cortisol. Chronically high levels of cortisol can be a killer, linked with the onset of serious health problems like cardiovascular disease and adrenal fatigue. So, every time you act out your anger, you could reduce your lifespan by around half an hour, if not longer, because the event is so stressful.
“The problem with road rage is that there’s a sense of ‘legitimate anger’ - I can hurl abuse at you because you’ve endangered my life. Yet it’s also addictive. If you’re an adrenaline junkie, and you get a thrill out of road rage, it’s only a matter of time before there are serious consequences. It’s not healthy, either. You get the rush of endorphins and dopamine but they can also break down your immune system.”
2. Keep your car clean
An uncluttered car could lead to a happier mind.
Mike adds: “If you’re driving around in a vehicle that’s a tip, it can actually have a huge knock-on effect for your mood. Your car is often viewed as your safe space but if it’s chaotic and cluttered it could have a negative impact on your frame of mind before you even begin your journey.”
3. Practice ‘Square Breathing’:
Breathing techniques are important when it comes to managing anger and one such method is called ‘Square Breathing’.
BAAM’s Mike says: “Inhale for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and then breathe in for four seconds - and repeat. This technique demands focus and control - no eye-contact with other motorists, no honking, no hand gesturing - and works to quickly calm your nervous system. There are many other different breathing techniques so perhaps experiment until you find one that really works for you."
4. Get the turmeric lattes in
Your brain and your gut are inextricably linked. And a healthy diet could free your brain from rageful thoughts when you’re behind the wheel.
So says Professor Alexander Sumich, who co-directs the Centre for Public and Psychosocial Health at Nottingham Trent University and who has written extensively on anger management.
Nutrition impacts the amygdala, almond-shaped structures deep in the brain's temporal lobes that are crucial for processing emotions, particularly fear, anxiety, and aggression.
Prof Sumich says: “If there’s a dis-regulated emotional response to threat in areas like the amygdala then people are more likely to respond in either a flight or fight way. In a car, where you’re not really able to flee, then the default action is to fight. And nutrition is our best defence in terms of physiological stress response. There’s a direct link between the gut and the limbic system - a set of structures that are involved in our behavioural and emotional responses - and it can modulate how we think or feel.
“In terms of specific foods, it’s the items we already know are good for us, including oily fish, while laying off things like sugary drinks and processed meats. Probiotics also support lactobacillus and bifidobacterium in the gut and help to reduce the inflammatory response while supporting the gut wall. Some spices, including the turmeric you’ll find in turmeric lattes, are useful. An active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin, which is a very powerful anti-inflammatory.”
5. ‘Haven’ your mind immediately after a road rage incident
Road rage has the power to cause lasting trauma.
The Select Car Leasing study showed how 15% of respondents said they remained angry for ‘several hours’ or even ‘all day’ after a highway confrontation.
But can a technique called ‘Havening’ help the red mist to lift?
The term ‘Havening’ refers to a psycho-sensory technique that helps to disconnect the amygdala from a stressful or traumatic event, such as road rage.
It allows people to let go of that gut twisting emotional response in order to process it more cognitively.
Prof. Sumich says: “Havening harnesses the power of touch and releases a hormone called oxytocin, aka the ‘hug hormone’. The presence of oxytocin is associated with post-traumatic growth. It’s a technique that uses light strokes to the hands, arms, or face - those areas that are sensitive to touch - and which stimulates the release of oxytocin, which then helps to block negative emotions like aggression, anger, sadness and fear by calming the amygdala.
“It’s obviously not something you should do while driving but it’s simple to self-administer when you’re stationary, particularly if you’re shaken-up after a road rage event.”
6. Say it out loud
A flurry of words, many of them involving four letters, might broil inside your brain while driving in stressful situations.
But vocalising how you’re feeling while behind the wheel, and putting an emotional label on it, can reduce its impact.
Professor David Crundall, a leading Traffic and Transport Psychology specialist at Nottingham Trent University, explains how the technique is called ‘Affect Labelling’.
Prof Crundall, who also writes course content for the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS), adds: “The theory is that when you’re feeling these negative emotions of anger and frustration you see high activity in the amygdala. Your speech production centre is located in the left frontal lobe of the brain. While this area of the brain is programming the verbal code for your emotion, it competes with activity in the amygdala, effectively reducing the intensity of how you feel.
“One of the best ways to employ this is to select words from a list. Imagine you’ve got a list of words on the inside of your fold-down sun visor in your car. If you’re feeling one of those emotions, you literally say it out loud. The nice thing about this technique is that even if you don’t believe in any of it at all, the simple act of just sitting in your car and saying, ‘I feel angry about this cyclist’ can make you realise how ludicrous you sound. Plus, doing anything in between the triggering event and an act in response is crucial as it allows time for rationality to kick in.”
7. Recognise the gender differences
There are key gender differences when it comes to road rage.
The Select Car Leasing study shows how around half of female respondents (49%) said they ‘never’ resort to road rage, whether it’s honking horns or giving rude hand gestures.
That ‘never’ figure is notably smaller for men, falling to 37% per cent.
And Prof. Crundall says the triggers for road rage differ between the sexes, too.
He reveals: “In road rage scenarios, females are more likely to get angry about threats to their and their occupants’ personal safety, particularly if they have children in the car. Whereas with males, they have a greater tendency to be angry about an ego attack, where someone has done something to make them feel belittled in some way.
“Again, mindfulness techniques can help here. Stop, take a breath, observe, and proceed - aka ‘STOP’. It puts a gap between what you’re feeling and what you’re about to do.”
8. Ask yourself, ‘Am I the problem?’
Frank McKenna is a leading UK road safety expert and emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Reading.
He urges motorists to recognise that not all road transgressions are intentional - a simple fact that could lessen frustrations.
He explains: “With road rage, there is a tendency to make an attribution error. When people commit a violation, it is easy to attribute this to an intentional behaviour rather than an error that we can all make. If the driver in front of you is driving slowly, it is not likely that they are doing so to frustrate your journey. It is worth considering why they are driving this way. Are they lost and trying to navigate?
“What we know about those who intentionally violate is that they are more often in crashes. The question for you is, ‘Where do you want to be when that person has their crash?’ The more that you engage with this person the more likely that you will join this person in their accident.”
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