Do you get anxious while driving? Some people feel that getting behind the wheel of a car can feel overwhelming. They might even prevent driving at all costs or only drive on side roads. This isn’t because they don’t like to drive but because they feel driving anxiety. Most people don’t feel that the cause of their nervousness could actually be a slight defect of their eyes, a condition called binocular vision dysfunction (BVD). Go through and learn more about driving anxiety symptoms and how they overlap with BVD symptoms.
What Causes Driving Anxiety?
You might experience driving fear if you have a phobia about getting into a fatal accident. Some people are nervous while driving because they are generally nervous. When this is the situation, they can discard things that develop anxiety and things in their life that are making their anxiety worse.
Treatment for Driving Anxiety
Treatment for driving anxiety contains a combination of therapy, generally cognitive-behavioral therapy, to see negative thought patterns. Exposure therapy, a part of CBT, helps to develop confidence by facing worried driving situations. Medications like anti-anxiety or antidepressants may be suggested, especially for severe cases, alongside therapy. But what about those individuals who have tried possible things to overcome driving anxiety and are still having debilitating phobias when it comes to operating a vehicle? From driving with people they believe to make efforts to minimize stress in their lives by doing yoga or practicing meditation—some people try to put all of these changes in but not find relief from their anxiety.
How Common is Driving Anxiety?
Driving anxiety is called nomophobia or a phobia of driving and is generally common. The severity of driving anxiety can vary broadly from person to person, ranging from little discomfort while driving to a paralyzing fear that makes it impossible for some individuals to get backside the wheel.
The accurate prevalence of driving anxiety is hard to find precisely, as many people may not be aware of their fear. However, several factors can contribute to driving anxiety, including:
Traumatic Events: A past experience while driving can result in driving anxiety.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: People with generalized anxiety disorder may feel heightened anxiety in various dilemmas, including driving.
Specific Phobias: Some people may have a specific phobia related to driving, such as fear of highways, bridges, tunnels, or driving in heavy traffic.
Social Anxiety: For some people, driving anxiety may be related to issues about being judged by passengers or drivers.
Treatment options for driving anxiety can include therapy, exposure therapy, medication, and relaxation techniques. If you or someone you know is experiencing driving anxiety that is interfering with daily life or causing significant distress, it is important to seek help from a mental health expert who can give guidance and help.
Most people are unaware that there is another common point where nervousness behind the wheel can occur: binocular vision dysfunction.
BVD results in picture misalignment. This situation is where the two eyes have difficulty working together as a team to make one clear image. The body accepts to correct this vision misalignment by excessive use and severely straining the eye muscles.
In people with normal binocular vision, their eyes work in tandem, accurately in sync every time and sending one transparent, concentrated picture to the brain. However, in people with binocular vision dysfunction, the eyes do not work simultaneously—this makes it hard for them to see one clear image.
When the misalignment is complicated, it causes double vision. However, in most cases, the misalignment is very subtle and ancient, making it difficult to find. Even when the misalignment is time and it’s unnoticed, the signs can be debilitating—especially while driving.
People with binocular vision dysfunction often feel the following while driving:
Anxiety before and during driving
Motion sickness/nausea
Dizziness
How Would Binocular Vision Dysfunction Cause Driving Anxiety?
Common symptoms associated with binocular vision dysfunction contain dizziness and difficulty with depth perception, balance, and equilibrium, making it hard to process visual images and to see the road, signage, and nearby cars. Understandably, this can make someone feeling BVD very worried about driving their car. This persistent anxiety on the road makes it difficult for people to function on a regular basis.
Causes of BVD
BVD can be caused because one eye is physically higher as compared to the other, which is generally a very subtle difference. It can also be caused by an eye muscle abnormality, which is something many people are born with. As people with these abnormalities get older, the eye muscles become even more strained from trying to continuously realign the picture they are sending to the brain, which results in the uncomfortable symptoms of binocular vision dysfunction.
Stroke, brain injury, or certain neurological disorders can also cause BVD.
While having anxiety while driving with dizziness, nausea, and motion sickness is generally associated with BVD, other symptoms can contain:
Headache
Neck ache/head tilt
Double vision
Sensitivity to light/glare
Reading difficulties
Balance problems
Fatigue with reading
Shadowed/overlapping/blurred vision
Feeling overwhelmed in crowds/large spaces
Skipping lines/losing your place while reading
Closing an eye to make it easier to see
Importantly, the symptoms of BVD can significantly impact a person’s quality of life that extends beyond driving.
But there’s great news—it’s never too late to overcome your fear of driving.
Treatment for Driving Anxiety
Specialized lenses can cure BVD. These micro-prism lenses realign the images to make one visual image.
To find out if your anxiety is a result of BVD, doctors use both a standard eye analysis and a comprehensive neurological examination and use those results to suggest specialized aligning lenses.
Our micro-prism lenses help patients to feel noticeably better immediately. In fact, the average patient will notice a 50% reduction in symptoms by the end of their first visit. Towards further visits, the aligning lenses continue to improve and eradicate BVD symptoms.
If driving makes you feel nervous and scared and is accompanied by nausea, you might have BVD.