Cycling is great for many reasons, but I feel that the biggest boost to my well-being was giving up driving.

I'm a firm believer in cars ruin cities.

Cycling is great. I ride both for sport/fitness and for errands, has a ton of benefits, but I agree with you that the biggest boost is not driving.

Car culture/motonormativity in the US is a huge problem and transit here is severely lacking, cycling infrastructure or other wise (trains, busses, safe pedestrian paths and areas, trams, etc.).

People point to traffic and stress, but there are overlooked harms of car culture we tend to ignore. It's responsible for a significant portion of emissions, and drivers and those near cars inhale a staggering amount of microplastics.

Those who use public transit are less likely to be overweight, less likely to devlop type 2 diabetes, and less likely to have high blood pressure.

Driving needs to stop being an unavoidable default. EVs and self driving aren't the answer either, all the same problems, except exhaust, are present with EVs.

While I haven't given up driving, the fact that I don't rely on it to commute (granted I work from home rather than cycling) means that when I do drive, my relative frustration is really low. About the only thing that annoys me is dangerous driving... for obvious reasons!