![]() ![]() How to save yourself from a terrible commute Finally, in a recent British government study, workers with commutes longer than an hour reported feeling more anxious, less happy, and less satisfied with life, and were less likely to state that their daily activities were worthwhile as a whole. The Gallup poll also found that those with longer commutes report spending more time worrying, feeling less well-rested, and experiencing less enjoyment in life in general. Both the Swedish study and a study of commuters on the Long Island Rail Road found that people with long commutes sleep less, while the Swedish study also found that they report being more exhausted and rate their overall well-being lower on a daily basis. People with long commutes report being more exhausted and rate their overall well-being lower on a daily basisĬommuting also seems to be terrible for our sleep. ![]() Not only are you spending lots of time in your car, but you're also facing stress when you hit a traffic jam and worry that you'll be late for work or to pick up your kid. One reason commutes are so stressful, economists say, is the unpredictability and lack of control. (This might explain why commuting leads to higher blood pressure, though that's not certain, since we still don't have hard evidence that chronic stress actually causes hypertension.) "Commuting clearly makes us stressed," says British transportation researcher Daniel Newman, pointing to several studies - including a study of 21,000 workers in Sweden - that have found an association between longer commutes and higher levels of chronic stress. Long commutes also make us miserableĮven setting aside obesity and blood pressure, commuting makes us unhappy in all sorts of other ways. And a Gallup poll of 173,581 US workers, meanwhile, found that those who commute more than one hour each way are more likely to have chronic back or neck pain. Hoehner found that people with long commutes tended to have higher blood pressure - even after controlling for exercise. What's more, even if you do exercise, there's still evidence that commuting can be bad for your health in other ways. It seems there's something specific about a long commute tacked on to the end of a workday that drains us of the willpower to exercise or eat right. Interestingly, long commutes are more likely to cut into these "health-promoting behaviors" than long workdays alone. They were also more likely to buy "non-grocery food purchases" (i.e., fast food or takeout). Economist Thomas James Christian analyzed data from the American Time Use Survey and found that people who spent more time commuting consistently spent less time exercising, sleeping, and making food at home. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that most people seem to lose their willpower to exercise after sitting in traffic for long stretches of time. In theory, the negative effects of commuting can be counteracted - as long as you exercise at home. On the surface, this might sound like good news. Most people seem to lose their willpower to exercise after sitting in traffic When the researchers corrected for this variable, the effects mostly disappeared. Instead, it was the fact that commuters were less likely to get exercise. Hoehner conducted a study of 4,297 Texas workers and found that those with long commutes (greater than 20 miles) had greater rates of high blood pressure and high blood sugar than those with short commutes (0 to 5 miles).īut when researchers probed further, they found that it wasn't commuting itself that was making people fat. "We've found that people who commute longer distances are less fit, more likely to be obese, and have worse metabolic outcomes than those with shorter ones," says Christine Hoehner, a doctor at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. The association between long drives to work and poor health has turned up in a number of different studies (see this Slate article by Annie Lowrey for one excellent overview). But there's research that suggests doing it with other people will make it far less unbearable. Spending more than two hours of your day commuting - as 8.3 percent of American workers now do - will probably make you miserable. Related The utter dominance of the car in American commutingīut what might be a surprise is how dramatically a long commute affects people's self-reported rates of well-being, stress, and overall satisfaction with life - if you do it alone.
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