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Recently a group of Swedish researchers performed a comprehensive study on 21,000 commuters, taking into account the mode of commuting (most by car, about a quarter by public transit) and the length of the commute. As reported in The Atlantic, their findings were that, surprise surprise, long commutes corresponded with decreased sleep. Long commutes—particularly in the 30-60 minute range—were also linked with poor health in general, and increased stress levels. Writer Eric Jaffe explains, "People with a lengthy commute show an increased amount of stress, get worse sleep, and experience decreased social interaction. A commute of 45 minutes carries such a cost to well-being that economists have found you have to earn 20 percent more to make the trip worth it."
In other words, those hours in the car or on mass transit may be weighing you down more than you think.
So you could make it official and move into your cubicle (or shop or school or...). Or, you could try walking or biking to work-- happiness expert Dan Buettner says that "the negative stats about commuting apply largely to car-based commutes, plus you'll get your blood pumping and be more alert when you start your day." Or, even easier, listen to your favorite music during your commute, and try really hard not to think about work during that time. In the words of LLuminari CEO Elizabeth Browning, "Feel the freedom of walking away and going to another area of life." You could also look into having those "Pimp My Ride" guys install a mini-spa and waterfall in the backseat of your Corolla. Just a thought.
More on workplace happiness:
How these women switched to their dream careers.
3 steps to finding the right job for you
| Illustration: Thinkstock |
Let's try a quick exercise. Think of everything you've done in your professional life for the last three years—every question you've asked, every problem you've solved, every discovery you've made, every breakthrough you've had. Now explain all of it aloud in a way that's understandable and engaging. You have three minutes, starting now. Go. What's that? You're finding this project a bit difficult? Well I said it was quick, I never said it was easy.
The 42 graduate students who participated in The University of Queensland's 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition in Australia last month know just how challenging it can be. 3MT asks candidates for advanced degrees to present their thesis ideas to an audience of non-specialists in 180 seconds. The contest, says the mission statement, "is not an exercise in trivialising or 'dumbing-down' research but forces students to consolidate their ideas and crystalise their research discoveries."
Videos from the winning presentations are available to watch online for free, and they're inspiring—not only because they offer anyone an opportunity to educate themselves fascinating subjects in three short minutes, but also because they celebrate a grossly under appreciated skill: communicating the ideas we're most passionate about. It doesn't only apply to big presentations or speeches; whether you're in a job interview, on a date, pitching your big idea or just trying to persuade your friend that Revenge is a really good show and she should give it a chance, passion is an attractive quality. If you want a role model for using yours in your favor, just watch Matthew Thompson, a psychology student, who managed to turn "Structure and Features of Complex Visual Stimuli: Assisting Identification in Forensics" into "Suspects, Science, and CSI."
Keep Reading
How to find your passion
Oprah's advice for talking to a crowd
The most useful communication technique of all time
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| Photo: Getty Images |
Her breakthrough: Brazilian Gabeira, 24, holds the current record for biggest wave ever ridden by a woman: a 45-footer at a notoriously sharky break called Dungeons off the coast of South Africa.
Her biggest hurdle: Handling the psychological and physical aftermath of wipeouts so violent they're like underwater explosions. "I've been doing a lot of physiotherapy and trying to find my rhythm again," Gabeira says, of wrestling with a chronic back injury.
Lesson she's learned: Be less anxious and more strategic. In the past, Gabeira says, "I wanted to be everywhere at all times. Now I realize that I just have to be ready for the biggest swells, as healthy and strong as possible for when the conditions are right."
What's next: Spending time at Jaws, a fearsome, wind-whipped, highly technical wave a half-mile off Maui's north shore that occasionally tops 70 feet.
Breakthrough advice: Don't be afraid of fear. "When you're scared and uncomfortable, you can allow yourself not to do anything but sit there and feel that sensation. And you will go past it. The fear kind of mellows out, and what you're left with is more confidence."
Meet 14 more people whose ideas wowed us this year.
Keep Reading
How surfer Bethany Hamilton lives her best life
Deep-sea videographer Christine Shepard on swimming with sharks
A new wave of surfer philanthropists
| Illustration: Thinkstock |
While it's easy to blame your junior colleague and her emoticon riddled meeting reminders or your boss whose nickname might as well be "Looping in an innocent bystander," we might have more control over the problem than we think. That's because, as entrepreneur and TED curator Chris Anderson argues in this insightful Washington Post op ed, "to fix a communal problem, a community needs to come together and agree to new rules." So he, along with his colleague Jane Wulf, opened the question up to the commons and created this amazing email charter with their help.
Full of gems like "respect recipients' time" and "ending a note with 'No need to respond' or NNTR is a wonderful act of generosity,'" their 10 commandments of email are actionable steps anyone can take to make her inbox—and the inbox of anyone else around her—more manageable.
"How to stop email overload? Think before you hit send" (Washington Post)
Email Charter
Keep Reading
To: Oprah.com readers, Subject: Email etiquette
How to send a smarter message
The 30 day email detox
What would it take
to change your life for the better? It may be less than you think—we’ve
got mini-makeovers to help you upgrade everything from your workout to
your weekend. #12: Ditch the Internet slang.
Yes, we live in a 140-character world, thumbs furiously tapping out terse missives. But consider an e-mail received recently by O magazine's editor in chief: "susan: hows it goin?? Annny chance you might know some peeps that could get a screenplay 2 production?"
The chances of this e-mail being taken seriously, of course, are south of zero. Literacy speaks volumes; all these disposable little messages themselves send messages—about you. So we humbly suggest: When faced with the choice of writing "because" or "becuz," "for" or "4," opt for elegance. Spell out words, end sentences with periods, consider the comma. Oh, and one exclamation point will do.
Keep Reading
30 days of makeovers
E-mail etiquette
The "too-cute" e-mailer
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| Photo: Thinkstock |
The chances of this e-mail being taken seriously, of course, are south of zero. Literacy speaks volumes; all these disposable little messages themselves send messages—about you. So we humbly suggest: When faced with the choice of writing "because" or "becuz," "for" or "4," opt for elegance. Spell out words, end sentences with periods, consider the comma. Oh, and one exclamation point will do.
Keep Reading
30 days of makeovers
E-mail etiquette
The "too-cute" e-mailer
 |
| Liz Cook, sincerelylizphoto.com |
Her Passion: The world looks different in the company of Kim Soerensen--specifically, it's mounted on a pedestal, in an array of colors, sizes, and materials. Over nine years, Soerensen has acquired thousands of unique globes. Some have textured mountains; some illustrate ocean currents in fine detail. Some are faded with age--and many depict national borders long since dissolved.
"Each one is a tiny piece of history," says Soerensen, whose collection includes delicate glass orbs, toy tin balls, retro black spheres, Soviet-made moon globes, and even an upside-down globe with Australia on top.
Her Start: The first globe to catch Soerensen's eye, in 2002, cost $5 at Goodwill. It looked old, but Soerensen couldn't be sure how old. So she did some digging--and traced its origins to turn-of-the-
century Germany. An obsession was born.
In 2005, when Soerensen unearthed proof prints for the first complete moon globe, she offered them to the Austrian National Library, which houses the world's most respected globe museum. Impressed by her knowledge, they asked Soerensen to become their globe scout in the United States. She's been finding antique models for European museums ever since.
Her Empire: The day she counted 150 globes in her home, Soerensen knew it was time to upgrade her space. She opened Omniterrum, a store where people can marvel at--and purchase--her spectacular spheres. (Prices start at around $25, but she once sold a 17th-century Italian globe for $150,000.)
Soerensen also maintains an online business omniterrum.com and delights in giving tours of her worldly wares--because even if you're not planning to do any globetrotting, she believes there is plenty of pleasure to be found in, as she calls it, "traveling with your fingertips."
Keep Reading
With the space shuttle's return to earth today, just about everybody in the nation has got a wacky case of landing mania. But let's roll back the clock 13 days, to July 8th, when Atlantis launched--and we noticed a story by CBS about a small town flag-loving librarian named Annie Platoff.
Platoff has undertaken the task of researching and locating the position of the six American flags planted on the moon during the Apollo missions. The simple act of raising a flag, it turns out, required intense preparations. Listen below as she describes how the thick astronaut gloves impeded gripping the slippery nylon, how a third horizontal bar had to be mounted to keep the flags from flopping down due to a lack of a breeze, and how micro-meteriods now threaten to puncture little holes in the still-waving stripes and stars.
What we loved most about all the flag-loving was Platoff herself. How in the world, we wondered, did this woman figure out her passion, which, by the way, comes with a delectable official name—vexillology.
"Well," she says. "It's funny, but I first fell in love as a kid. They had these flags of the world patches that you got in the mail if you sent in 3 Campbell's soup labels and one proof of purchase from a Premier saltine box."
{Learn the rest of Annie's story after the jump}
| Photo: Thinkstock |
1) Google +
What it is: Kind of like Facebook. But with live video chat.
Nonchalant Sentence #1: "My cousin invited me, but I haven't checked it out." (You have to be invited; this is a key point. Do not be like me and try to discuss Google Plus as if all you have to do—duh—is hop on the site and try it out).
Nonchalant Sentence #2: "I'm up to like 67 circles." (Circles are like clubs that you organize. You can have friends circle or a co-workers circle or trout-fisherman circle,etc)
2)Tumblr
What it is: A place where ordinary people can make their own tiny, simple blogs really easy. Think of it as scrapbook where people post ideas on pages instead of just pictures.
Nonchalant Sentence #1: "Have you seen the one about the Daily Beast cat?" (Have see the one implies that you have seen more than one. The Daily Beast cat is a green-eyed tabby cat named Beast who is photographed by his owner every day. It bears no relation to the Daily Beast website).
3) FourSquare
What it is: A service that lets you broadcast your location to everyone you know.
Nonchalant Sentence Number #1: "I'm going for mayor of...insert fashionable eatery." (The mayor of anywhere is the person on FourSquare who is physically at that place more than any other user. So being a mayor of some place famous—say Thomas Keller's Per Se—might get you street cred among foodies. I, on the other hand, am going for mayor of Rite-Aid. I will probably earn it too, due my children's need for milk, diapers, and black Spiderman Band-Aids.)
Keep Reading: How Social Media Can Help Sustain Your Friendships
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