How to beat commuter stress
Caroline:
April 29th, 2007
Although it’s a good few years since I commuted into London on a daily basis I can still remember how grim it was. Things have got much worse in the intervening years so I thought that perhaps the academics at Nottingham Trent who have come up with a study entitiled “Resilience and Positive Coping as Protection from Commuting-Related Stressors and Strain”, were on to a winner. They found that the worst stress comes from lack of space (and I would think,seats), loud music, delays and bad smells. Ideas for coping include listening to music (could be stressful for other commuters though), admiring attractive people (could get you into trouble), use of tobacco and alcohol (not an option on many trains), talking on a mobile(extremely irritating to others), travelling outside rush hour (not an option for the majority of workers), reading, writing or using a laptop (hard when there is so little space) – hmm – no ground-breaking solutions there then!