Health Effects of Driving

Spending long hours behind the wheel adversely affects your back and may result in various lower back problems, which may often prove to be detrimental to your health. To avoid this, it is essential that you try and maintain a good posture while driving, try to sit as straight as possible and keep your spine straight. Also, regular exercise will prove to be very useful in alleviating back pain and will help you to stay fit.

Research suggests that long period of driving may cause a number of mental or psychological issues as it involves surge of negative emotion while on the road. This observation is based on the fact that the entire traffic system can increase your level of anger, impatience and depression. Music, in this regard, has proved to be an effective stress buster, as it is known to produce a calming effect on the driver.

As per the research conducted, people who commute for more that 45 minutes (daily) tend to be exhausted and experience lower quality of sleep, as compared to those who travel for a less duration of time. This is a direct offshoot of fatigue, which leads to narrowed attention span, daydreaming and constant yawning, etc.

The more you spend time in your car, higher is your level of exposure to harmful and toxic gases, such as ozone, lead, etc. These harmful gases are known to cause several lung related problems, such as emphysema, asthma and may exponentially increase your probability of being affected by cancer, especially lung cancer.