Is sitting in the car 'self care'?

You might have seen posts on social media spruiking the virtues of "car time" as some sort of primitive therapy or self care.

"I don't care what anybody says - sitting in your car by yourself, in the quiet is elite self care," said Alyson Stoner in a TikTok video.

"When the only peace you've had all day is this sitting in the car eating [Maccas] alone," wrote TikTok user Hannahheli1.

Another user said she spends half an hour in her car before she goes into the gym.

The car has a lot going for it. It's like a tiny living room filled with your stuff that you can transport from place to place. Sit quietly. Listen to music. Call a friend. Doomscroll in peace. But how beneficial is sitting in your car as an act of self care?

"If that is the best tool you have in your tool box that is telling you something," said Christchurch-based counsellor Caroline Williams, sucking some air out of the #cartime balloon.

"We go from box to box to box and it is not really helping people regulate in healthy ways, not in the long term," she added, of spaces like offices and houses that are doused in artificial light and full of stagnant air.

Instead, people should be looking to "green time" as in time spent outside in nature as a scientifically proven form of self-regulation, according to Williams.

One study from 2019 found that spending at least 120 minutes weekly in nature was needed to maintain good physical and mental health. A 2016 study found that Kiwis were on par with the other developed countries, spending about 30 mins a day in their home's outdoor space and that's in summer.

How beneficial car time can be depends on what you are doing in your car for self-care. Are you meditating? Practising breathing exercises? Reading a book? Maybe, but probably not.

"They are sitting in their cars looking at other people sitting in their cars on social media," said Williams.

Karen Field, a retired psychotherapist who started the website Talking Works, said decompressing in a car can be helpful for someone transitioning from, say work to the home where there is a problematic relationship. Or if you will likely be hit with a barrage of bouncing children as soon as the door creaks open.

"Just collect your thoughts before going into the house," said Field.

I've been commuting in my car to a job for the first time in years. When I say it takes an hour or more, people have pity on me. Don't.

It's supplying some much needed oxygen to my life where I sit quietly, call a friend, pray, listen to music or a podcast (that can mention murder without me explaining to a five-year-old what murder is).

The act of driving, I find, is a time of transition - leaving work brain behind and entering parent headspace. It's similar to the benefit that a few hours in a plane has when transporting you to holiday mode.

Jenny Hale, a senior parenting coach at the Parenting Place, reframed car time as a "having a pause" that doesn't always need to happen in a car. Otherwise transitions can be jarring.

"When we talk about getting ready for your kids or finding some bandwidth, we talk about getting into nature or getting alone where you just have some peace and quiet," said Hale, and the car can be a good place for that transition "to reflect, think and breathe."

One parent Hale coached said she spent half an hour in the car outside her child's preschool before pickup each day to give some time to herself.

"I think the car is very convenient and accessible and it is usually not too far away from you," said Hale.

"You don't want too many things in your way. Your car is good just to be able to hop into," she said.