Life is stressful enough nowadays, what with wars, rising prices and toxic rhetoric. Adding to that stress by fuming in a traffic jam or waiting anxiously for a delayed train is the last thing you need on your daily commute. Cycling to work instead is a big improvement, as you know. Journey times are predictable. Costs are minimal. And pedalling, like any exercise, helps tension evaporate.

One of the best things you can do to help maintain your mental wellbeing in a hard-to-make-sense-of world is something pithy enough to print on a mug: keep calm and carry on cycling. But given that it’s Mental Health Awareness Week in May, it’s worth digging a little deeper and examining whether – and, if so, how – you could benefit more from your daily rides. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut, even with an activity like cycling that generally gives you a lift.

Active travel’s wellbeing benefits

Active travel is cycling, walking or wheeling (using a wheelchair). It’s transport that uses human power. The Mental Health Foundation, which organises Mental Health Awareness Week, puts ‘exercise/move regularly’ right at the top of its self-care tips. “Even a short burst of ten minutes brisk walking can boost our mood and increase our mental alertness and energy,” the charity says. The same goes for cycling.

Cycling promotes calmer thinking. You don’t have to think about anything much beyond balancing and steering the bike, pushing the pedals and feeling the breeze. You focus on the sensations of the present moment – which is what people mean when they talk about mindfulness. On a bike it’s harder to get caught up racing thoughts and impossible to doom-scroll through social media.

Cycling can help combat depression. Like any exercise you enjoy, it boosts your mood, helping alleviate less severe depression. The NHS recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week to stay physically and mentally healthy. A 15-minute each-way commute, five days a week, will give you that.

Cycling can make you feel more positive in general. You might be powerless to change many things in the world – even little things like traffic jams or train delays – but on a bike you’re in control. If you’re running late you can pedal harder. If you want to stop for a chat or a photo, you can easily do so. That sense of self-control helps you withstand stress better.

Talking of which: cycling helps cut stress. Like any aerobic exercise, it reduces your levels of cortisol, the ‘stress hormone’. It also stimulates the release of endorphins, the ‘feel good hormones’. This can reduce anxiety and make you happier.

Better routes to wellbeing

Any cycle ride to work should give you some or all of the above benefits. Yet you can get even more out of your bike commute if you start treating it more as ‘me time’ and less as an A-to-B journey to be completed as quickly as possible.

The most direct route to work may be the one with the highest speed limits and the most traffic. Such routes are seldom pleasant, even when you don’t get close-passed by an impatient driver. Investigate alternative routes that have little or no traffic. What’s an extra five minutes if you get to enjoy a nicer journey?

Planning quieter routes used to involve maps and experimentation. These days there are apps that will do the planning for you. All you do is enter your start and end points. Sometimes the app will let you choose route by journey type (fastest, quietest or balanced) or by cycling type (road cycling, mountain biking, e-biking and so on). Some apps have satnav-style voice directions for on-the-go navigation.

It’s worth trying different navigation apps to see which works best for you. Most are free – sometimes with a more fully featured paid-for version – from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store. Some good apps for cycle commuters include CycleStreets journey planner, Beeline, Citymapper, cycle.travel and Komoot. The heat maps on Strava can sometimes be useful as well, as they show where Strava-using cyclists tend to ride.

For maximum serenity on your cycle to work, incorporate some green spaces if you can. Pedal along a traffic-free cycle track bordered with trees and grass. Dawdle along a canal towpath. Ride through a park if there’s a right of way you can use. Cycling through ‘nature’ transforms how you experience urban areas. Road traffic that might only be tens of metres away can feel like it’s in another world.

Green spaces – and blue ones, which means by the water – are really, really good for you. Access to them is recommended by the NHS. And a bike can get you into green spaces in ways that a car can’t: you’re in the environment instead of watching it from behind glass; and bikes can use quiet routes (towpaths, bridleways, cycle tracks) that cars can’t.

Avoid confrontation

By avoiding heavy traffic, you’re less likely to come into conflict with drivers. The busier the road, the more a driver’s attention will be diluted and the more likely you are to have a SMIDSY incident (‘Sorry, mate, I didn’t see you’). Encountering fewer drivers also means that your odds of coming across an especially bad driver are lower. So, to repeat: use quieter routes when you can.

If a driver does cut you up or make some other ill-advised manoeuvre or aggressive comment, try to avoid confrontation. The situation may escalate and then ruin your whole day – or worse. While it’s natural to get angry when a near miss dumps adrenaline into your system, blowing off steam by screaming at the driver is very unlikely to help. Keep calm.

If close passes become more than an occasional annoyance, fit cameras to your bike; GoPro, Insta360, Cycliq and Garmin make models well suited to commuting. When you get home, upload any incident footage to your local police force using the National Dash Cam Safety Portal. Actively doing something about a bad driver gives you back a sense of control, as well as (hopefully) helping to curtail bad driving.

Conversely, when other road users are courteous towards you, show that you appreciate it with a smile and a thumbs-up or a wave of acknowledgment. They’ll feel better. You’ll feel better.

The same goes for pedestrians on shared-use paths. Be considerate. Slow down. Ring your bell. Say good morning. Meet a cyclist with a problem? Ask if you can help. Altruism is good for your own mental wellbeing, not just the person you’re being nice to.

Be kind to yourself

Commuting by bike is not a competition. The only way to ‘fail’ at cycle commuting is not to do it all, ever. Don’t force yourself to do journeys you won’t enjoy. If it’s tipping down with rain and you don’t fancy riding that day, don’t. The same if you’re tired or ill.

If there’s a bike that will make your journeys to work more practical or more pleasant, buy it. All bikes are relatively inexpensive in the long term, especially if you get them through Cyclescheme. Invest in that e-bike if your favourite route to work is too hilly. Buy that folding bike if you want the freedom to mix transport modes according to weather conditions or your mood.

And whatever else you do: keep calm and carry on cycling!