Some folks spend the first hour of their workday trying to purge the stress and anger generated by the morning commute. Then they spend the first hour of their evening at home doing essentially the same thing. If you’re one of these people, you need a new commuting strategy.
Patty Noland-Feuerborn has commuted to her job as a career development coordinator at the University of Kansas for seven years.
“My main frustration is traffic slowdowns,” she says. “You just sit there wondering “How long is this going to last?’ But there’s really nothing that you can do about it, so I just try to stay calm.”
Noland-Feuerborn is on the right track. Here are some additional tactics that she and others recommend for a more pleasant commute:
1. Get up earlier. If the mad rush to work is causing stress, then maybe that last 30 minutes in bed isn’t worth it. Get up and out earlier. The extra time cushion might help keep you calm.
“I try to leave enough extra time, especially in the morning, that way if there is a traffic problem, I’m still going to be on time,” says Noland-Feuerborn.
2. Tune out. You might be in the habit of listening to shock jocks, political hacks, sports screamers and head bangers in the morning, but the noise – and the content of the noise – might be making you tense and elevating your blood pressure. Try turning it all off, for a change. Silence is golden.
3. Tune in. Noland-Feuerborn likes listening to National Public Radio in the morning, but she also keeps a variety of CDs in her car.
“My current favorite is a U2 compilation,” she says. “But I’ve also got a Neil Diamond CD and another by Enya – all very soothing.”
Noland-Feuerborn also listens to books on tape and an Italian language instructional CD to help pass the time. “Lately, I’ve been listening to a rosary CD,” she says. “I’m Catholic, so I find the rosary to be comforting. Plus, I recently got an iPod, so maybe I’ll start listening to that soon.”
4. Consider sharing a ride. Noland-Feuerborn carpools one or two days a week with Kerry Benson, a lecturer in journalism at the University of Kansas. “It makes the ride a lot more fun,” she says. “We talk the whole time, and it goes by pretty quickly. Plus we’re sharing the expense and hassle of driving.”
5. Put the phone away. Talking on your cell phone on the way to work might seem like an efficient use of time or a pleasant diversion from traffic headaches. But consider that it might increase your stress level as you try to do too many things at once: drive, talk, eat a bagel, drink coffee, change lanes, change radio stations – you get the idea.
6. Chill. Way too many people spend much of their commutes way too angry with the slow drivers, bad drivers, rubberneckers and fender-benders. Charles Spielberger, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger, has a prescription for all this rage – cognitive restructuring.
In an article posted on the Web site of the American Psychological Association, Spielberger suggests that when you’re angry, your thinking can become exaggerated and overly dramatic. Try replacing extreme thoughts with more rational ones. Remind yourself that getting angry is not going to fix anything. It certainly won’t change the behavior of drivers in the next lane, Spielberger says. Anger won’t make you feel better and will probably make you feel worse.
“There are certainly times during my commute when I feel pretty tense,” says Noland-Feuerborn. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still sitting there in my car between work and home. So, I just try to stay positive.”
Sources: www.apa.org, www.parenting.ivillage.com, www.washingtonpost.com
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