Lower Your Stress While Driving Rideshare Or Delivery

While most people don’t think of driving for Uber, Postmates (or another on demand service) as stressful, it can be at certain times.

If you drive Uber or Lyft, heavy traffic or an obnoxious passenger can raise your stress levels.

Likewise, if you drive delivery for Doordash, Postmates or Caviar, you may feel some anxiety when a restaurant is late with your pickup. If the delivery location is far away and there’s traffic, that can just make it worse.

While most rides and deliveries are pretty routine and easy, you’ll occasionally have a bad experience. It may be mean passenger, or a customer who didn’t get their delivery fast enough.

I’ve heard from many drivers that this can really bring them down, and ruin their day. For some, the experience can stay with them the whole week.

When this happens, it’s important to keep things in perspective. At the end of the day, driving for places like Lyft, Instacart, or Postmates is a service job. While most people you’ll interact with will be nice and polite, a few won’t. Be assured, it’s them, not you.

The Effects Of Stress And Anxiety

High levels of stress and anxiety can poison thoughts and paralyze people from living the life they have dreamed of.  It is easy to feel overwhelmed when dealing with money, work, family, health and a myriad of other issues every day.  Working harder will not always relieve the constant nagging feeling of dread that encloses our thoughts.  Left untreated, stress and anxiety can worsen and cause serious health and mental issues.

A Few Tips For Managing Your Stress

Stress and anxiety can be managed by taking action.  Small changes can produce huge effects if applied regularly.  Here’s 5 things you can do to immediately bring stress levels down to manageable levels.

Take A Breath And Count Backwards

If you run into one of the delivery or rideshare situations described above, do the following: Take a deep breath slowly, and then count slowly backwards from ten as you breath out. If you need, do it a second or third time.  It’s a simple technique, but you should feel slightly more relaxed after.

Release dopamine

Chemicals in the brain make people feel good. When you do certain activities, the brain is triggered to release these chemicals to give you a natural high. The single best thing to do when feeling stressed out is to get up and move around. If you’re driving (and not on a trip), pull over, stretch, and walk around for five or ten minutes.

When not driving, get physical and move enough that there is a rise in the heart rate. Dance, run, walk fast, play a sport, do anything that is active. Once the body is up and moving, dopamine is released. This chemical in the brain fights depression because it is designed to motivate by seeking pleasure from a reward.

This chemical does not just give a high like a narcotic would. It raises feelings of desire. It enhances feelings of needing a reward. When this happens, motivation to complete a task is higher and thoughts and feelings that any task is too hard is lowered.

List stressful things

To battle the beast of stress, it should be clearly defined. Sit in a quiet, calm place and write down everything that is causing the stress. Chances are the real issue will not come to the surface immediately. It is normal to bury a main cause of stress under more inconsequential issues because the real cause of stress is too hard to deal with. A full sink of dishes may be stressful, but that is not the reason for intense stress and anxiety.

List all things that are not going right, no matter how big or small. If there is nothing big on the list, dig deeper until you get to the root of your issues. If the problem is not clearly defined, there will be no resolution. This list will only provide temporary relief.  If the main issues are written down, solutions can be formed and this list can become a healthy habit to live by.

Prioritize and plan

With the list of issue and motivation high from the exercises, prioritize the list into things that can be tackled easy, and things that will take major work to fix. Develop a plan to tackle some easy items. This will inspire confidence and more motivation to work on the tougher issues. Take baby steps that are always moving in the direction of success.

Stress and anxiety are not relieved when the goal is met.  They are greatly reduced as soon as a solid plan to hit a goal is developed.      As long as there is hope that the issue is being resolved, stress does not consume thoughts.  Plan small, easy, attainable steps to keep anxious thoughts at bay.

Call a friend

Be proud of the successes gained so far and share accomplishments with a friend who is understanding. Telling a co-worker, the dishes are done, will not have the same effect as telling a best friend who understands that doing the dishes is almost a miracle after taking care of the kids and a million other chores on a list.

Do not fight the battle of stress and anxiety alone. Develop a circle of close friends to confide in. Share goals to get active and talk about which oils work the best. Share the things that stress you out and why they are so bothersome.  Give and get advice on plans of actions to overcome stress.  Reaching out and working as a team can mean the difference between success and failure.

Make these 5 activities habitual.  Mentally, feelings of wellbeing will be elevated and feelings of hopelessness will be stamped out.  Physically, this list will take a small step in living a healthier life which will reduce feelings of dread.  Emotionally, a connection with others going through the same experiences will make the journey more relaxing and fun.