I experienced this quite viscerally in my last job, where I had roughly a 40 minute commute in heavy traffic each way. On the surface, it sounds like nothing, but I feared for my safety every time and it worsened with each passing month.
There were several reasons I left the job, but this was at least 30% of it and I can tell you it significantly improved my mental health. For a while I had anxiety every time I had to drive, and it started well before I ever got in the car. A couple years later, I was able to handle several very long road trips and even did a stint as a rideshare driver with almost no issues-- the anxiety is pretty much gone now, it was nearly all due to that commute.
I worry that a lot of mental health issues are essentially situational and that we (as a society) put all sorts of barricades in place that make it difficult for people to shift their overall situations (the thing that will likely most benefit them).
I experienced this quite viscerally in my last job, where I had roughly a 40 minute commute in heavy traffic each way. On the surface, it sounds like nothing, but I feared for my safety every time and it worsened with each passing month.
There were several reasons I left the job, but this was at least 30% of it and I can tell you it significantly improved my mental health. For a while I had anxiety every time I had to drive, and it started well before I ever got in the car. A couple years later, I was able to handle several very long road trips and even did a stint as a rideshare driver with almost no issues-- the anxiety is pretty much gone now, it was nearly all due to that commute.