6 Ways to Create Sensory Haven While Driving

Driving in your car can be an amazing opportunity to enhance your sensory diet. Here are many ways.

Auditory:

Listen to the music that you need at that time to either perk you up or calm you down and sing along with it.

Turn off the music and chant or listen to the sound of raindrops or falling snow.

Open the window and listen to nature’s sounds, especially if you are driving along the ocean.

Scent:

Infuse essential oil with a device that you plug into your cigarette lighter. Choose the oil you need to either perk you up or calm you down.

If you’re lucky to be driving through an orange, cherry or apple grove in bloom, or along the ocean, open your window and inhale deeply.

Tactile:

Use a vibrating mat behind your back or a back massager.

Massage parts of your body with wooden rollers.

Open your window to feel the warmth of the sun on your body or the refreshing cold of lightly falling snow.

Stick your arm out the window and let the grounding surge of the wind against your skin perk you up for amazing body awareness.

If you are drowsy, rub something with rough texture against your skin to perk you up.

Put weight on your lap.

Oral/motor:

Drink cold drinks of peppermint tea or lemon water through a straw to alert you and especially if you are driving while drowsy.

Also, chew gum or suck on a lemon or lime.

Drink warm chamomile tea to calm you.

Proprioceptive: Push into the steering wheel at a light.

Vestibular: Driving in your car naturally gives you vestibular input and especially on a bumpy road or going up or downhill.

Try some or all. Play with them to see what works best for you.