For most of us, it’s hard to show up for work in a positive frame of mind. According to a recent story in USA Today, the average American’s commute to work is 25.5 minutes each way.
Factor in a stop to get coffee or fuel up, and that’s about an hour each day weathering traffic to get to and from the office every day, or a staggering 260 hours every year spent in a hurry behind the wheel.
As it turns out, though, it’s not just the stress of the drive that has an ill effect on drivers. Several studies have also linked commuting to health problems that make your bad mood seem insignificant.
Researchers from the University School of Medicine in Saint Louis found that people who have to drive more than 10 miles to work have a higher risk for elevated rates of blood sugar. Another from the Cooper Institute in Dallas linked a longer commute to higher cholesterol levels and increased risk of depression in commuters.
Driving in rush hour traffic has also been repeatedly linked to temporary spikes in blood pressure, even if your pressure is normally within healthy levels. Worse yet, scientists from the University of Utah looked at the cumulative effect of these mercuric blood pressure changes seen in drivers and found that they tend to drive your pressure up overall, leading to greater risks of heart problems and strokes.
Add in sleep deprivation caused by longer commutes to work and other common effects ” like sore backs and eye strain ” and it’s understandable why you might show up for that 7 a.m. meeting in a surly mood.
Tom Vanderbilt, author of “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us),” knows how to battle these effects.
“We’re not as aware of what’s happening in traffic as we think we are,” he recently wrote. “We act differently in different situations, we get angry over things that matter little in the long run, we’re susceptible to distortions in our sense of time, we have trouble living beyond the moment, of seeing the big picture.”
Vanderbilt put together a brief list of tips to help commuters. Many of them seem like common sense, but most of us overlook them when we are in the driver’s seat. Among them:
- Leave early. Most traffic stress is related to feeling that you’re going to be late. If you leave a little earlier, you likely won’t mind slow drivers or the granny with her turn signal on for three miles as much.
- Don’t change lanes because of slow traffic. We all do it, but Vanderbilt says it seldom matters.
- Remember your manners. Merging traffic and a sense of entitlement to your lane not only increases your anxiety, it’s bad for traffic flow, he says. Be courteous. Let that car over. Give a wave of thanks when someone lets you change lanes. It’ll make for a more harmonious commute.
- Keep your eyes on the road. Recognizing upcoming lane closures and hazards and being able to react before the last second will relieve stress not only for you but for other drivers as well.
- Audiobooks, anyone? Following the narrative of a good audiobook will put you in a more peaceful state of mind than some music choices and especially talk radio, Vanderbilt writes. If you do listen to music, go goofy – why not try a little karaoke, especially if you carpool?
