Hate your commute? It might actually be good for your mental health, scientists say.

A passenger wearing a face mask on a subway train in New York City, the United States, on October 22, 2022.Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

• The commute is often seen as a chore, but the pandemic has shown that it can be good for your mental health.

• In order to prevent burnout, you need protected time to switch your thoughts after work, said two experts.

• Longer commutes for office workers and sham commutes for remote workers could also help, they added.

The dreaded commute to work could be good for mental health, according to a recent study.

Researchers from Wayne State and Rutgers University found that commuting creates what’s known as a threshold space, allowing your brain to switch off and recharge.

In an article for The Conversation, the researchers argued that the pandemic has shed some light on how important this borderline is in preventing burnout.

“We believe the loss of this space explains why many people have missed their commute,” they wrote.

Commuting offers time to switch gears

A couple rides the subway on January 1, 2017 in New York City, the United States. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

People need time to mentally transition from work to home. This happens on two fronts, the researchers said: psychological distancing and psychological recovery.

Mental detachment, as defined in a 2007 study, suggests that you’ve not only disconnected from business calls and emails, you’ve also stopped thinking about work-related problems or opportunities.

With psychological recovery, you also recover mentally from the energy that the day has consumed.

According to a 2014 study, without these two processes, there is a higher risk of burnout.

Longer journeys can be more relaxed

Commuting can provide that sheltered time to let go and recover. In an unpublished study, the researchers asked 80 university employees to discuss situations in which they could mentally switch off.

“We found that on days with longer-than-average commutes, people reported higher levels of psychological detachment from work and were more relaxed during the commute,” the researchers said in The Conversation.

“Longer commutes could give people more time to detach and recover” by listening to music or podcasts, for example, they said.

This only works if the commute itself is not stressful. “On days when the commute was more stressful than usual, they reported less psychological detachment from work and less relaxation during the commute,” the researchers said in The Conversation.

Consider a fake commute

A man reads a book during a downtown subway ride on January 13, 2022 in New York CityRobert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

The researchers suggest that embracing the commute could be a way to protect yourself from the negative effects of work and prevent burnout.

“To improve work distance and relaxation during the commute, commuters could try to avoid rumination about their work day and instead focus on personally fulfilling uses of commute time, such as listening to music, podcasts, or calling a friend,” they said in The Entertainment.

Trying to get home as quickly as possible by changing that route each day, cutting through traffic, or hopping on a crowded train could be counterproductive, they said.

“Some people may find it worth taking the ‘scenic route’ home to avoid tense driving situations,” they wrote, for example, in The Conversation.

Remote workers who don’t typically have commutes can also learn to switch off by creating a fake commute for themselves.

“Our findings suggest that remote workers may benefit from creating their own form of commuting to create a liminal space for recovery and transition — such as For example, take a 15-minute walk to mark the beginning and end of the workday,” the researchers said in The Conversation.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Source