Your Commute is Slowly Killing You

Stop us if you've heard this one before: long commutes are bad for your health. Some of the strongest recent findings in behavioral science have focused on the perils of a long ride to work. People with a lengthy commute show an increased amount of stress, get worse sleep, and experience decreased social interaction. A commute of 45 minutes carries such a cost to well-being that economists have found you have to earn 20 percent more to make the trip worth it. Length alone isn't the source of the problem: stress rises with a commute's variability, and for transit riders it rises with the unpredictability and overcrowding of a bus or train.

Typically the negative health outcomes of commuting are studied independently. Recently a group of Swedish researchers decided to consider several of them at once. The team analyzed data from roughly 21,000 people in the Swedish province of Scania who worked more than 30 hours a week. (Most people there commute by car, though about a quarter get to work on public transit.) The participants reported their commute mode and one-way length, and answered several questions designed to assess their sleep quality, everyday stress, exhaustion, mental health, and general health.