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That “Dreaded” Commute Is Actually Good for Your Health

• James R. Bailey

Should we bring it back?

The overarching narrative, up until now, has been that commuting is a bad thing. Studies show that longer commutes lead to decreased job satisfaction and increased risk of mental health issues, while shorter commutes have the opposite effect. But despite a year of working blissfully from home, our job satisfaction and general mental health have continued to deteriorate. Why? A part of this is the result of fewer in-person interactions and “Zoom fatigue.” But the authors believe it or not, misplacing our commutes has also made a contribution.

• Pre-Covid, our commutes were a part of our daily rituals, and rituals have been a natural human behavior since the beginning of time. They add stability and certainty into an otherwise unstable and uncertain world — alleviating feelings of grief, anxiety, and increasing confidence.
• Bringing a commute back into your day, even a short one, can be good for your mental wellbeing, and even increase you job satisfaction.
• Your “commute” could be as simple as spending some solo time meditating in an unoccupied room or taking a short walk around your block before hopping into your first meeting.
• Whatever you decide, make it a ritual, one you feel safe repeating time and again.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

We live in a world of commuters. Because of our love of cars and big suburban houses, 75% of Americans drive to work. Long distances. The average American travels 16 miles each way to their office and 220 million spend at least 1.5 hours a day in their cars.

• James R. Bailey is professor and Hochberg Fellow of Leadership at George Washington University. The author of five books and more than 50 academic papers, he is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, The Hill, Fortune, Forbes, and Fast Company and appears on many national television and radio programs.
• AC Andy Cohen , Ph.D, is managing partner of August Max Leadership Partners, a firm dedicated to leadership development through executive coaching and organizational consulting. He brings 30+ years of experience as a line CEO at Capital One, strategy consultant at Oliver Wyman, executive coach, and business school professor at Georgetown, George Washington, and American Universities. He holds a B.A. from Brown and an M.S. and Ph.D in management and organizational behavior from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Your Commute Is Bad for You, Here's How to Make It Better

We've all been there: You tell people your commute is 45 minutes each way, but every day, there's a delay. An accident. A broken down train. Inclement weather. A barge hitting the bridge you have to cross to get to work and causing a four-hour traffic backup (true story).

To compensate for the inevitable delays, you leave the house earlier and earlier. And to leave earlier, you have to go to bed earlier—or be exhausted for the whole day. You spend most of the commute staring at the clock and panicking at the first sign of brake lights in the distance.

And once you're finally at work, you realize: You have to do it all over again tomorrow.

If your commute is making you miserable, join the club. There's ample scientific research showing that the length of your commute negatively impacts your productivity, your satisfaction at work and home, and both your physical and mental well-being.

What Research Says About the Impacts of a Long Commute

Countless studies have been conducted to measure the impacts of long commutes on productivity, health, and happiness, and the findings are bleak.

No matter how you slice it, commutes are never good for you.

People feel more negative emotions during their morning commutes than any other activity they engage in throughout the rest of that day.

Of course, there are times when having a long commute is unavoidable. There may not be jobs in your field close to your home. You may need to live further from work to take care of family members or to avoid moving your kids to a new school district. You may simply not be able to afford a home in the area where your workplace is located.

But other times, we put ourselves into a position where we suffer through commute-related stress in favor of some other incentive.

Is a Higher Salary Worth a Longer Commute?

Job #1 had a 50-minute round-trip commute and paid $67,000 a year.

Job #2 had a 20-minute round-trip commute and paid $64,000 a year.

84% of the participants in the study selected job #1, as researchers wrote, "expressing a willingness to forfeit one hour each workday to their commute—250 hours per year—in exchange for just $3,000. That's $12 an hour of commuting time—less than half their hourly rate at work!"

They concluded that people were unable to "fully appreciate the psychological, emotional, and physical costs of longer travel times."

If you have a choice in how far you live from where you work, it's worth examining if the costs of a long commute are truly worth it. Taking a pay cut to work closer to home—or paying a higher cost of living to live closer to work—may be worth it if the actual and psychological costs of your commute are more detrimental than the benefits of earning a slightly higher salary.

But if there are reasons why you don't want to/can't move or find a job closer to home, there are some ways to combat the stress of a long commute to feel happier and be more productive both at work and at home.

How to Increase Your Productivity by Combating Commute-Related Stress

You may be stuck with a long commute, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to suffer through the more detrimental consequences of commuting long, highly trafficked distances to and from work.

Researchers have found multiple ways that you can make commuting less stressful so you feel refreshed, engaged, and ready to be productive both when you get to work in the morning and when you get home in the evening.

Use your commute to prepare yourself to transition into your next role

At home, you play one role. Maybe you're a roommate, a parent, a partner, or a caregiver. At work, you play a different role.

They took four groups of people and instructed each group to engage in a different activity during their morning commutes:

One group was instructed to do something they enjoyed like listening to music, looking at social media, or reading the news.

One group was told to spend the time planning for what they would do that day/week at work and thinking about how those activities would help them reach their goals.

One group was told to split their time between doing things they enjoy and planning for the day/week of work.

The final group was given no specific instructions and told to just do whatever they normally did during their commutes.

They found that many people—particularly those who experience "greater work-family conflict"—were able to bypass the negative consequences of a long commute by planning ahead for the day at work.

Here's the specific prompt participants were given:

Many people find it helpful to focus on making a plan of their workday, or week ahead, and reflect on how those plans will help them achieve their personal and career goals. Ask yourself, for example, what are the strategies you have for the week to be productive? What steps can you take today and this week to get closer to your work goals, as well as your personal and career goals?

Find an alternative to driving to work

You'll suffer fewer of the negative consequences of a long commute if you choose a method of transportation that doesn't require you to drive. If you have a choice between driving and riding a train/subway or taking a bus/cab, you'll be less stressed and more productive after your commute if you avoid driving.

However, multiple studies have found that the best way to commute is actually to ride a bike or walk:

Of course, if it takes you 45 minutes to drive to work, it's unlikely that you're going to make that walk or ride a bike that distance. But there are some alternatives. For example, you could walk or ride a bike to a bus/train stop instead of driving to get some of the benefits of a more active commute and avoid driving altogether.

Find a way to make your commute more social

But if striking up conversations with strangers on the train sounds like your worst nightmare, there are some other options for making your commute more social.

You could carpool with coworkers who live near you. This gives you the benefit of being social and lets you split the driving between your carpool participants so that no one has to deal with the stress of driving every single day.

If your commute is making you miserable, it may even be worth adjusting your schedule slightly or driving a little out of your way to share your commute with a roommate, partner, friend, or spouse so that you both get to enjoy the stress-free benefits of socializing during your commute.

Develop a morning routine

They write: "On the whole, these results support the contention that commute time is not unequivocally a disutility to be minimized, but rather that there is an optimum to be achieved which can be violated in either direction—i.e. it is possible (although comparatively rare) to commute too little as well as too much."

That might be getting a cup of coffee from your favorite coffee shop, catching up on social media or the news, or listening to your favorite podcast. This can help you prepare for the day whether you drive for an hour to get to work or just move from the couch to your desk.

Considering the Impacts of a Long Commute as an Employer

While you should certainly consider the impacts of a long daily commute on yourself, as an employer, it's also important to consider how your employees are being affected by long commutes.

If You Can't Improve Your Commute, Abandon It

If you simply can't move closer to work or find a job closer to home—and if none of the strategies in this piece help you transform your commute into a more positive daily experience—there's one more option: Find a job where you can work from home.

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Jessica Greene

Jessica Greene is a freelance marketing and business writer. A former writing instructor and corporate marketer, she uses her subject-matter expertise and passion for educating others to develop actionable, in-depth, user-focused content.

• Workplace culture
• Personal productivity

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