imakenoise

Today is the last day that I am going to sit in my car battling traffic, I never drive other than going out of town for gigs and to work and sitting in rush hour today was the final straw. I have decided that I am just going to combine my bike with public transport from now on to get to work, it will give me time to read and get things done instead of sitting in traffic fighting the urge to re-enact Falling Down on people

Has anyone else turned to bicycle commuting as a form of stress relief?

caloso

Not the main reason, but certainly a pleasant side effect. The only thing wrong with my daily ride to work is the destination.

melm0th

classic

Chilled

No doubt my commute has prevented my fist from meeting a couple of my "colleagues" faces.

bhop

I have thought about the stress part, but not too much until this week. I've had to drive all week because of some complications with my cat (basically she's stuck at the vet till he says i can bring her home, so I have to drive to work in case today's that day). 4 days in a row of L.A. rush hour traffic..two of them in rain (LA drivers are idiots in rain) I was so annoyed this morning. I haven't even had time to ride since last Friday! I'm considering going to the gym tonight to ride the stationary bikes hoping that'll clear my head! Agh! I'm gonna explode!

mickey85

Not necessarily for stress-relief, since my commutes were never stressful. For me, it was depression-related. I was always depressed in the winter, and I decided that I'd follow the formula:

Exercise = endorphins
endorphins = happy
happy = not sad!

So, I started biking to school, and I'd never been happier.

wneumann

Turned to it for stress relief? No.

Get stress relief as an added bonus? You betcha!

I don't stress at all about my car commute. It's about as clean and easy as I could hope for (actually it's less straining than my bike commute). But riding my bike allows me to blow off the steam of the day at work, as well as getting that little boost you'd get from most forms of exercise.

I haven't been out for a ride in over a week due to a number of reasons and I'm tense as hell as s result. I really need to get back on the bike tomorrow.

imakenoise

I am really considering ditching my car all together.. if it were not for the fact that I use it to play out of town gigs and take my dogs around i would.. parking alone is now costing me 972$ a year

crazybikerchick

Where do you live? Do you have a car-sharing program in your city you could join instead of owning your own? Are your gigs with a band? Could you ride with another band member? Child trailers also work well as dog trailers too

crazybikerchick

Certainly bike commuting avoids the being stuck in traffic stress but it comes with other stresses like being on an exposed vehicle dealing with aggressive nutcases, or people gliding over into the space you are occupying while yakking on their cell phone not signalling or looking.

I find it much less stressful overall than driving to work or riding public transit. But I know someone else that tried bike commuting only to find it increased her stress level too much and she quit.

drjava

That's why I started. I got sick of sitting in endless traffic.

white_feather

I have severe agoraphobia. I ride my bikes to and from work because I cannot handle sitting in a car being stuck at a redlight or a construction site or in traffic. I need to control my forward motion or I start to freak out. I have been using my bike as a crutch for about fifteen years now. I go everywhere with it. When I am at home and get cabin fever I get on my bike and ride as far as I can. As of today my agoraphobia is full on due to the stress from my eight year relationship ending so I am limited to only riding my bike around one block and always staying within sprinting distances home. I have been so well with my disease at some points that I was able to ride for nine hours straight but only around the different neighborhoods. i used to ride up to ten miles a day five miles away and five miles back but it has been a hell of a long time since then and it seems like I will never get back there but I do have hope.

no motor?

I sold my motorcycle after getting that same feeling, except I was coming back from a "fun ride". Stress relief is a secondary benefit for me, but it's a big one.

funrover 

It does help me a lot also!

cyclefreaksix

I'm sorry to hear of your difficulties. Take it slow and with small steps. And never, never lose hope my friend. Sometimes that's all we have and all we need.

Feel free to contact me via PM or email if you're in need of a friend. As a life long sufferer of depression, I'm familiar with the daily struggle.

JPprivate

the few times I drive (usually in thick city traffic) I am ready to kill somebody. I still don't get why I need only 5 minutes longer by bike if I commute by bike vs car. And my commute is over 7 miles, about 1/2 mile shorter than if I go by car. (and I drive like an idiot, but I am in no particular hurry when going by bike)

...and I started to get motion sickness if I ride with somebody else driving.

JoeyBike

I think my commute causes stress. I have two basic routes. The longer one sucks, and the shorter one sucks more. I live in a third world country (New Orleans) where most surface street drivers are illiterate and probably drunk, stoned, high and/or talking on their phones. Basically, there are three reasons I bike to work:

1. I don't like spending money on cars. I don't even like the idea of internal combustion for convenience sake. Wasteful in so many ways.

2. Parking Downtown. Impossible or very expensive.

3. I save some time. Traffic here is a total ratf*** during rush hour. I don't see how people can sit in a car and watch the same light go red to green to red five times before queuing up for the light one block away. In that sense...stress relief.

RogerB

I didn't know how tense not cycling made me until I started cycling. I mean, really, traffic is nothing for me. I get to work and to home faster if I drive, and I don't have the extra hassle of changing clothes in a public restroom.

But if I'm not bike commuting I'm just about not exercising at all, because I don't know where else I'd fit it in, and after a few days I start to get really stir crazy, depressed, irritable. I wasn't like this when driving was the only gig.

sauerwald

7 years ago I had a heart attack at age 44. I knew that I would not be able to keep up with a regular exercise regimen unless it were worked into my daily routine. By getting rid of the car, and using a bike to get to/from work, I dropped 40lbs of excess weight, I get daily aerobic exercise and my blood pressure is much more under control.

spiker

Not just traffic stress relief...
My commute is a 15 ride. Driving would be maybe 10 minutes.
After work I ride a couple hundred yards to the main road. Turn right & I'm home in 15 minutes. Left & I do an hour+ ride home. No matter how bad the day went I've always gone left. Well today was pouring & the wind gusted over 40mph so I did turn right. Still, battling the elements was a stress buster.

QuickityJacks

I got in the car for the first time in three weeks the other day. I had forgotten (or probably never realized in the first place) how I considered driving somewhere to be an irritating chore. I've only been commuting on my bike for a couple of months now, but I still look at every ride as a treat, even when they suck, as is the case with minor level sand storms or a UPS truck getting fresh as it blue-shifts towards me, murder on its mind.

It definitely evens out my mood in class. I haven't threatened to strangle a single mouthy undergrad this quarter. Finding creative (and harmlessly larcenous) routes through gated communities as a means to a heavy-traffic-dodging end has become a surprisingly fun bonus past time, too.

sourdoughT

My job is usually low stress however I do bike commute for stress relief. Too many crazy factors these days in day to day living.

aharris

I had heard about stress relief. I only notice if its been a few days of driving in, but I notice I'm more stressed without a consistent bike ride. We're having 40 knot gusts for Friday morning and tomorrow so it'll be a few days that I've wimped out and I'm feeling the out of kilter feeling, less humor.
I think in part not biking allows me to worry about other errands on the way home (biking simplifies what I can do). I let things slide to the morning that I ought to do now (instead I'm reading Bike Forum). I also try harder to get all papers corrected before leaving on the bike, while I don't feel as much pressure if I've got the car.

I did find this blog entry from Boston (contains profanity, and plenty of it) that shows that perhaps biking is not a cure all for stress and anger: https://ridereport.bostonbiker.org/20...midnight-ride/

Jonahhobbes

My commute is one of the reasons I'm still in the job. If I did not ride in I'm fairly sure I would not be in the job.

El Gigante

Like most other posters, stress relief has been a by-product, not the reason for my bike commuting to work. Like bhop, I commute in Los Angeles which has some of the most god awful traffic you could ever run across. The 405 freeway is legendary for being congested, for no apparent reason, any time, day or night. Since I started commuting by bike and subway, my stress has dropped, along with 30 lbs., and my monthly transportation costs. The only problem is that its tougher to keep it up now that the weather is turning cold, but at least I don't have to worry about using studded tires like some of our brethren in the northeast!!