Aspect Car Rental BlogNews and views about car hire and rental world wide.

Well now that a University Professor has tested it, it’s become official, driving in congested traffic is stressful! Did you need an academic to tell you that? No neither did I but here’s the kicker and something I for one would not have believed, using buses is far less stressful and may improve your health and lengthen your life! Well unless you’re driving the bus I guess.

It seems that because we can relax on a bus and read, talk on the phone, watch a movie on an iPod or Smart Phone we are more relaxed and therefore less stressed. There is also another factor that Dr Lewis thinks helps and that is handing over control to someone else which means we don’t feel the responsibility to keep everyone safe either.

It seems that traffic jams and congestion really do damage our health but in ways we may not realise, after all we tend not to think that raised blood pressure (when we don’t have a blood pressure problem) is a health risk but it is.

The raise in blood pressure is linked to higher degrees of cortisol in the blood and cortisol is a ’stress’ hormone. One that silently damages the adrenal glands and causes a cascade of other harmful chemicals.

So maybe it’s time to start catching the bus and if that’s not possible why not try carpooling, if you can get four of you to car pool, you know that for three weeks out of four, you’re increasing you health not detracting from it!