為什么通勤16分鐘是通往幸福之路的關(guān)鍵？

Many people look forward to a lengthy work commute as it provides them with an opportunity to awaken their senses before entering the office and starting their workday. Others, however, prefer commutes under half an hour in length, as long ones make them feel drained and exhausted before even stepping foot into their place of work.

許多人喜歡漫長的通勤時(shí)間，因?yàn)檫@可以讓他們在到達(dá)辦公室、開啟一天的工作之前喚醒身體感官。然而，另一些人更喜歡通勤時(shí)間在半小時(shí)以內(nèi)，因?yàn)殚L時(shí)間的通勤會(huì)讓他們在到達(dá)辦公室之前就已經(jīng)筋疲力盡。

It’s perhaps not surprising that our commutes make us miserable. The UK’s Office for National Statistics has found that “commuters have lower life satisfaction, a lower sense that their daily activities are worthwhile, lower levels of happiness and higher anxiety on average than non-commuters”. In fact, if your commute takes longer than an hour, feelings of happiness decrease with every successive minute of travel. If a lengthy commute makes us unhappy, then it should follow that a shorter commute improves our happiness levels.

通勤讓我們苦不堪言，這也許并不奇怪。英國國家統(tǒng)計(jì)局調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)“相比非通勤人員，通勤人員通常生活滿意度較低、更不容易體會(huì)到日常活動(dòng)的意義、幸福指數(shù)更低，而焦慮感更高”。事實(shí)上，如果你的通勤時(shí)間超過一小時(shí)，時(shí)間每增加一分鐘，你的幸福感也會(huì)隨之相應(yīng)下降。既然漫長的通勤時(shí)間剝奪了我們的幸福感，那么就應(yīng)該縮短通勤時(shí)間，以提高我們的幸福指數(shù)。

What’s the ideal commute that is necessary to ensure work efficiency and general happiness? Prepare to be surprised. It turns out that the ideal commute is actually not no commute at all. A study of more than 1,000 workers in San Francisco found that their ideal one-way commute was 16 minutes. Fewer than two per cent of people wanted a commute time shorter than four minutes, while only 1.2 per cent wanted no commute time at all.

多少時(shí)間才稱得上是理想的通勤，既能保證工作效率，又能確保整體幸福感?答案出乎人們的意料。研究表明理想的通勤并不是完全不需要通勤。通過對舊金山1000多名工人進(jìn)行調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們理想中的單程通勤時(shí)間為16分鐘。只有不到2%的人希望通勤時(shí)間小于4分鐘，另外僅有1.2%的人希望完全避免通勤。

It seems that people do appreciate some separation between work and home – using the travel time as a psychological tool to decompress from the day. And it’s backed up by science. An increasing amount of research shows that ‘active commutes’, which involve walking or cycling, can make life better – even as important to wellbeing as a marriage or a pay rise.

人們希望辦公地點(diǎn)與住所能保持適當(dāng)?shù)木嚯x，這樣他們可以利用這段通勤時(shí)間緩解一天的心理壓力。這在科學(xué)上是有根據(jù)的。現(xiàn)在越來越多的研究表明“積極通勤”(包括步行或騎單車)能夠讓生活變得更美好，其對于幸福的意義甚至如同婚姻或加薪一樣重要。

If the ideal commute for most people is a 16-minute stroll each way, how should businesses respond? “Gone are the days of making employees spend unproductive time traveling to a central location and working to fixed hours that date back to Victorian times,” says Richard Morris, UK CEO at Regus. “Businesses of every size investigating flexible work options that enable employees to work closer to home and to vary their hours to better suit their circumstances.”

如果大多數(shù)人理想的通勤時(shí)間是每天單程步行16分鐘，那么企業(yè)對此如何回應(yīng)呢?“自維多利亞時(shí)代以來，員工每天在路上花費(fèi)一段毫無成果的時(shí)間前往中心區(qū)域并按照固定時(shí)間工作，這樣的日子已經(jīng)一去不復(fù)返了，”雷格斯英國首席執(zhí)行官Richard Morris表示，“各種規(guī)模的企業(yè)研究可行的彈性工作制，使員工能夠在離家較近的地方工作，并能改變自己的上班時(shí)間，以更好地適應(yīng)的各自不同的生活狀況。”

If, as the ancient Athenian historian Thucydides suggests, “The secret to happiness is freedom”, the opportunity to choose where to work and how to get there could make all the difference to weary commuters across the world.

古希臘歷史學(xué)家修昔底德說：“幸福的秘訣是自由。”對于世界各地疲憊的通勤者來說，如果能夠自己選擇工作地點(diǎn)和通勤方式，那將具有非凡的意義。