UAE: Burnt out due to traffic jams?

Hours of driving in traffic each working day could eat away at the health of an individual and motorists must take care of this, some say. 

One employee who commuted from Sharjah to Dubai, wept on the way home one day. She blew it after having several nights where she slept less because she was always in bed as early as 5am to beat traffic, Fatma Abdullah told me. 

‘After that crying day, I slept all night for 24 hours,’ said the driver, who drives an hour to her office and an hour and a half on the road home. Residents must acknowledge that traffic pollution wreaks havoc on mental health, said Dr Heike Jacobs, consultant in neurology at Saudi German Hospital Dubai. 

"Exposure to extremes of traffic will increase blood pressure and make you feel powerless," she said. Another Sharjah worker in Dubai said she was always nervous after a particular experience she could never forget. 

"I had an accident that day and took my drive from 90 minutes to two hours. I went to a nursery to collect my son and when I came back there he was the only one left," the mother said. All these feelings make you irritable at work and can even cause arguments. 

‘Burnout is very, very real,’ Jacobs urged, along with other stressors like challenging work and long hours. Driving cultures in UAE are also varied which make managing stress and the way you deal with them very important to your health. 

Another worker in Dubai moaned about missing sport classes because of excessive traffic. She had joined a gym, 15 minutes away, but it used to take her an hour to drive in. This short notice left her with no time to exercise and that made her more stressed out, and she didn’t want to leave the house. 

Tackling road rage  

Heavier traffic can get you down,’ Dr Jacobs said. Navigating a congested road makes stress hormones, such as adrenalin and cortisol, go off,’ she said. The outcome is an anxious and aggressive attitude of the drivers, and therefore reckless driving. 

This is where road rage gets you, the expert added. Road rage arises because of time pressure — and a person’s personality can compound stress, says Ritasha Versani, a psychologist at Aman Lil Afia Clinic Dubai. 

Those feelings can even result in unsafe driving habits like speeding or tailgating. Assigns of anger can include striking the steering wheel or grinding your teeth. 

"It’s about understanding what drives road rage, and it’s about finding healthy coping mechanisms," Versani said. Worse, stress if ignored for too long can create the conditions that trigger destructive behaviors such as binge-eating and alcohol consumption. 

As Versani said: "When we make traffic our feelings, we put our health at risk." 

And drivers must do something to recover emotional health, because long periods in traffic can impact sleep, leisure and family time, which impacts how they work, she said. 

If in traffic, psychologists suggest ‘mindfulness’. Here are some tips:  

• Spend your commute on music or podcasts to pamper yourself. 

• Be a little calm with positive self-talk and deep breathing. 

• Take a breath and count 10 before you respond to the bad situations on the road. 

• Try to get somewhere else instead – carpool, public transportation, etc. If you can, you can also work from home if that is possible. 

Eliminate the stress: The Answers To UAE’s Traffic Jams. Subscribe to Just Dubai for updates!