Driving a car through heavy daily commuter traffic elevates human cortisol and blood pressure levels significantly higher than almost any other routine daily activity, including working a highly demanding job.

A closer look

Driving a car through heavy daily commuter traffic elevates human cortisol and blood pressure levels significantly higher than almost any other routine daily activity, including working a highly demanding job. The constant start-and-stop vigilance, the profound lack of control over your environment, and the lingering threat of getting rear-ended by a distracted teenager completely fry your nervous system. By the time you finally drag yourself into the office, your prehistoric brain genuinely believes you have just spent the last forty-five minutes surviving a life-or-death encounter with a sabertooth tiger. We have essentially engineered an inescapable daily routine that slowly poisons our cardiovascular health, just so we can live twenty miles away in a beige suburban house while spending a small fortune on gas, insurance, and the privilege of intense psychological torture