A Long Commute Hurts Your Health, Researchers Say

Average commute times in Lufkin are between 17 and 19 minutes, according to zipatlas.com. That’s not so bad, compared to much of the country.

It turns out, longer commutes can have a serious health impact over time. This may make you want to move right next door to the office.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis studied over four thousand drivers in two Texas cities – Dallas and Austin – to see how long commutes impact health.

They discovered that people who live just ten miles or more from work, are prone to higher blood pressure than those who live closer to work. The extra time in the car must give you a chance to get ticked off at all the bad drivers and that makes your blood literally boil.

Commuters with trips of 15 miles or more each way are also at a greater risk of becoming obese, because all that time in the car just doesn’t leave room for much exercise. Unless of course, you do some ab tightening exercises while you’re sitting there. Perhaps the fist clenching and tensing up when somebody cuts you off does burn a few calories.

Overall, things could be worse in Lufkin. If you’re in zip code 75901, you average a 17.5 minute drive to work, and that’s a national rank of #28,836. There are over twenty eight thousand zip codes that have it worse. If you live in 75904, you average 18 minutes on the drive to work. That’s good for #28,332 in the US.

No matter what, we’re supposed to take the stairs when we get to work. And I suppose we should tell the boss it’s in everyone’s best interest to take those long breaks. It’s good for our blood pressure.