Can Owning a Classic Car Combat Stress?

Following a recent survey, the best ways to beat stress apparently include the humdrum, day-to-day activities that most of us take for granted. Be it as simple as making a cup of tea or watering our plants to working on a car or bike. Now we’re sure many of you, like us, can recall at least one instance where working on your classic has had the exact opposite effect (we have the broken tools to prove it) but generally speaking, working on a car is a major stress reliever and relaxation booster and something that can dramatically improve mental health. This isn’t just our opinion though, two thirds of you agree, too, so ditch the yoga mats and all those self-help podcasts and grab the spanners instead!

As well as recognising that generally working on a car is a great anxiety buster, the survey also shows that polishing and routine maintenance specifically are the best activities to relieve stress. Think about it, it has been well publicised that meditation is incredibly effective at combatting stress and anxiety but what is meditation if not the practice of focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity in order to heighten attention and awareness to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. Cleaning, polishing and working on a car all fall well and truly into this sphere of mindfulness.

Revered and respected Zen monk and teacher Shunryu Suzuki once said: “Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine”. Working on a classic car or bike allows us to implement and follow a few simple rules to help us become more Zen, and therefore less stressed. By doing one thing at a time, by doing it slowly, by doing it deliberately and by doing it completely.

When you’re changing spark plugs, for example, just change the spark plugs, taking it one step, one plug at a time. Don’t rush it – take your time and be deliberate with your actions, remaining focussed on the task. Try to concentrate on the one job and finish it completely before moving on to the next. Ensure the spark plug in cylinder number one is fully seated and connected to its corresponding HT lead before moving on to cylinder two, for instance. When you’ve fully completed one task then you can focus more completely on the next.

Working on your classic also provides a sense of achievement and the study shows that almost half of the people asked agreed that tactile tasks with an end product are one of the most satisfying of all. Add to this the financial benefits (with money worries being one of the greatest contributors to modern day stress) of maintaining your own car or bike and the stress beating benefits really begin to stack up. To take the cleaning example, too, these types of tasks require little to no thought, allowing us to “zone out” and forget about the troubles of the day, enabling us to find those rare, vitally important moments of calm.

For most of us, sadly, stress is a year-round companion but for a lot of people Christmas can really spike those feelings of anxiety and with the big day now very much looming (yep, there is already a tin of posh biscuits in the house that we’re not allowed to touch) now is the time to get outside and get tinkering on your classic. What better way to avoid the family drama and decompress after a particularly rowdy Christmas dinner than picking up the tools or microfibre cloths and tuning out for an hour or two?

But what if your garage is currently only housing the old rusty BBQ and a few manky tins of paint? Well, you’re in the right place to get involved so head on over to our auctions platform and take a look at the thousands of classified adverts listed on Car & Classic and grab yourself a stress-busting classic, whether it be a beautiful Camaro, a vintage Vincent or a crusty old project so you too can be more Zen and lower those stress levels!