This blog has been cancelled

The Guardian newspaper recently posed the question 'How does commuting affect wellbeing?'  I have recently, by choice, swapped my 7 minute walk to and from home to the office to a 60 minute equivalent - two hours of commuting from door to door each day.  It consists of a 12 minute walk to the station, a 35 minute train journey and by the time you get out of the station, a 10-15 minute walk from the station to the other end to the office.  This, of course, is when there are no delays or cancellations.

It could always be worse...

Ironically, given that my job involves adapting to severe weather conditions amongst other things, trains have up until recently been delayed many times over this winter due to the frequent storms and flooding we've been getting.  This, of course, causes some stress as it would for anyone, as you end up getting home later than you'd like.  It also doesn't look good when you have a new job to be late arriving... they know and appreciate it's not my fault, but I don't want to become unreliable so early on.  But one can tolerate delays every so often, especially when it is caused by things like the weather where the blame more squarely lies with our country's frightening inability to develop or upgrade infrastructure that is resilient to the elements.  Sorry, a bit of my job anxieties coming out into the open there...

Anyway, the most annoying thing I come across is the overcrowded nature of the train.  For anyone who has ever caught the 16:57 CrossCountry service from Birmingham to Manchester, you will know what I'm talking about.  I usually get to the train about 5 minutes before departure... by this time, all seats are taken and you have a 30+ minute journey standing up.  I have learnt to strategically position myself so I am not standing by the toilet; I usually go inside the quiet zone next to the luggage rack, which means a) if someone gets off at the one stop between work and home I can potentially get a seat, b) no horrific toilet smells, c) I can sometimes perch on the luggage rack depending on its contents and d) the quiet zone is usually slightly quieter, quite literally.  Don't get me wrong, standing isn't great when I feel it could be perfectly avoided by the novelty idea of adding more carriages.  But it's tolerable.

All of this stress - notice I say stress not anxiety - is heightened by people who, despite there being hardly any room to stand, insist on moving down the carriages insistent on finding a seat.  By the time they reach the end you've gone past six stops anyway.  Then of course there's the issue of first class, where the only thing taking up the seats is the vast amounts of tumbleweed.  

The final stress, of course, is the loss of time.  My previous job involved a less than ten minute commute by foot; suddenly an extra one hour 40 minutes is taken from my life per day, at best.  My weekday evenings are often spent procrastinating, granted, and for some reason I feel compelled to stress out about getting back as quickly as possible - I think this is also routed in my upbringing, always being obsessed with time. 

OK so delays, cancellations, overcrowdedness, less time... but for any keen followers of this blog, you'll know that back in March 2011 I suffered my most anxious moment ever, which occurred on a train.  Granted it was an eight hour journey, but still.  So the fact that I can even get on a train these days with few anxious feelings I believe is testament to how far I've come in three years.  That day in March 2011 was the worst of my life, but without it I probably wouldn't have got the help that I needed to progress not only getting back onto trains, but also to get my whole life back on track (pardon the pun).  So when compared to that, these other things pail into insignificance.  It again, for me, underlines the difference between stress and anxiety.  

So how does commuting affect well being?  Short term, it's more stress.  Long term, this could mean more anxiety.  That's the biggest challenge - I need to make sure these comparatively small stresses don't build up to become anxiety.  Either way, commuting, in my experience, isn't great for well being, although this of course would probably be different if you were travelling with a friend or partner.  Commuting, for me, also means more time alone which is the worst thing for me (blog to come on loneliness (again) I feel). Either way, long term, this will test my anxiety management.

This blog terminates here.

Best wishes
Al