Do you hate getting stuck in traffic jams? It’s one of the those modern stressors that anybody who lives in a big city has to deal with.

You know, that feeling when the overhead sign tells you just how long you’re going to be sitting there (in Chicago, rush hour signs report things like: “25 minutes to Circle,” a trip that normally takes 7). And you look around, and the guys next to you are swearing (you can tell because their lips are snarling), and the massive truck ahead of you hasn’t moved in like 15 minutes, and the fumes are getting funneled back into your car til you have to push the “recycle air” button, and your stomach is knotting up, and you’re starving because you didn’t have time for lunch. You know the drill.

You probably don’t have one of these suckers to just drive right over the cars ahead of you in the traffic jam…

One way NOT to deal with the traffic is to do several other physical things. The Okanagan blog complains about traffic jams and says multi-tasking drivers admit causing 1 out of 20 accidents. Okanagan doesn’t have much traffic up there in BC, Canada.

Okay, but let’s say you’re in a city that does get traffic jams. The first trick is to choose to stop thinking about this stuff. Instead, come inside your own mind (where else can you go?) and breathe slowly. I knew a yoga teacher who described one type of breathing that’s powerful for calming the mind—”use the back of your throat” when you breathe. It makes a quiet noise, and that’s what it should do. Let the breath come in through your nose, not your mouth, and you’re drawing it in with the back of your throat. Try it. And here’s a few more ideas about yoga breathing to calm you down.

Next, decide the positive thing(s) you want to think about. Could be your great job, your dear spouse, your beautiful kid, your garden, your friend–pick only things you can feel good about right now. Decide that this time is yours–and you get to pick what you want to do. You can focus on your favorite music or think about how to surprise your family with something positive when you get home.

Positive thoughts can be mined like gold. All you have to do is pick them out and wash the bad stuff through the sieve of your mind.

Tags: Go Positive, Stress, Traffic

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Go Positive, Stress, Stressors, Think Positive, Traffic Jams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.