Traffic can make anyone’s commute a nightmare, and now it turns out all those long hours in the car can be bad for your health too. A study out of England, which could easily translate here, suggests that driving more than two hours a day can increase the aging process of the brain.
The five-year study looked at over half a million Britons between the ages of 37 and 73. Of those drivers, 93,000 were behind the wheel more than two or three hours a day and the study found those drivers already had lower brain power to begin with, but in addition, their IQ scores decreased faster than those who didn’t drive, or did less driving.
"We know that regularly driving for more than two or three hours a day is bad for your heart,” Kishan Bakrania, a medical epidemiologist at the University of Leicester, explains. “This research suggests it is bad for your brain too, perhaps because your mind is less active in those hours.” As for a possible other reason for the negative effects, Bakrania notes, “Driving causes stress and fatigue, with studies showing the links between them and cognitive decline.”
Source: The Sunday Times