Laura Whitmee Driving Lessons Thatcham

Congratulations Laura Whitmee. Having started lessons lacking confidence we worked on your confidence. We talked about the chimp in your head, something that everyone has, and you called her “Lola”. So every time you felt anxious about a vehicle close behind you we could explain to Lola and calm her down, allowing the human part of your brain to act rationally and calmy. All of this resulted in a great first time pass with just 1 minor mark. See you on the road.

Most people don’t realise that there are many parts of the brain that all do different jobs. The parietal lobe in simple terms, holds your memories. It’s like the hard drive on a computer. The frontal lobe is the human part of the brain. The limbic system is where the chimp lives. The limbic system is the part of the brain that can keep us safe in times of trouble. Our ancestors needed this part of the brain that reacted very fast to e.g. being chased by a lion to either fight or flight. However, thankfully, most people don’t get chased by lions anymore. The chimp part of the brain now has to deal with modern day things e.g. public speaking, a job interview or driving a car. When we feel nervous, the chimp in our brain starts kicking off and reacts to things 5 times quicker than the human in our brain and the chimp is like a young child. The chimp often over reacts to these things and makes us feel panicked and anxious

Even though it’s the chimp that reacts first, we need to learn to allow our human to step in and calm the chimp down and explain that you can handle this. By calming the chimp in our brains we can then deal with any situation logically and not over reacting to things.

Thankfully Laura managed to do this and I like to think that at anytime in the future she can talk to Lola and keep calm in any future situation.