BEIJING, Nov. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- A daily commute to work can have negative effect to people's health, a study published Sunday in the journal BMC Public Health suggests.
After surveying 21,000 full-time workers aged from 18 to 65, researchers from Lund University in Sweden found people who commute to work by car, bus or train suffer more stress, exhaustion and poorer sleeping quality than those cycle or walk to work.
Nevertheless, the surveyed people with longer commute times did not report higher amounts of stress.
The study showed that those who traveled 30 to 60 minutes by car were actually more stressed than those who had to travel more than one hour. Researchers speculate that it is because those with a longer commute had more time to relax.
But the researchers were not sure how commuting caused poorer health.
"More research needs to be done to identify how exactly commuting is related to the ill health we observed in order to readdress the balance between economic needs, health, and the costs of working days lost," said study author Erik Hansson.
(Agencies)