When Tony Lui wakes up in the morning at his usual time of 5:15, he rarely does anything other than brush his teeth before he’s out the door. Fifteen minutes later, he’s arrived as his workplace near Hunt Club and Riverside and is ready to start his work day, working with software and doing programming jobs. It’s something he’s been doing for almost seven years. But he didn’t always have it so easy.

Lui lives in Ottawa’s Kanata South suburb, an area with median commuting times reaching up to 26 minutes one way, according to data collected in the 2011 National Household Survey. Most of Ottawa’s suburbs have median commuting times approaching 25 to 30 minutes, with Orléans, Barrhaven and Stittsville being the most noticeable (excluding the area the census tracts attribute to Ottawa east of Cumberland but do not actually fall inside Ottawa’s wards).

Lui used to have a similar commute time – during rush hours, the drive from his house to his workplace can take at least 30 minutes.

“When I first started [at my workplace], people started around 8:00, 8:30. Those times I started around that time, but we were living pretty close to work back then so it was okay. Then we moved here, and since we had to take my son to school sometimes I still left around 8:00, so the commute time back then was at least half an hour for sure,” said Lui.

Back then, Lui and his wife had recently moved to Kanata to find a good school for their only son. A large reason they choose Kanata, Lui said, was that he had worked in the area previously and was familiar with it. However, the move combined with the fact the Lui drove his son to school every day meant a long trip to work.

According to Margo Hilbrecht, former Associate Director of Research for the Canadian Index of Wellbeing, commuting times upwards of an hour can have noticeable health effects.

“We found that if you are commuting for longer than that, it tends to decrease the amount of time you spend in social activities, it decreases time for just about everything. If you look at time, and you have twenty-four hours in a day, there are going to be trade-offs,” said Hilbrecht.

According to a paper Hilbrecht co-authored on the issue, being stuck in heavy traffic can add even more problems.

It makes sense, then, that as soon as Lui had the chance he tried to alter his commute time. His workplace allows its employees to work flexible hours, and it was something Lui took full advantage of.

“I don’t like getting stuck in traffic,” said Lui, smiling. “So after we don’t have to take [my son] in anymore, I experimented a few times and decided there’s no such time as a good time. So the best time is to go early.”

But Lui’s solution doesn’t work for everbody. Some people are unable to work flexible hours, and have fixed start times and end times. Others, like Lui used to, have to drive their children to school and are forced to commute to work after, often during rush hours. For these people, Hilbrecht has a suggestion.

“If you can work some kind of physical activity into your day, it seems to lessen the negative effects of a long commute. Whether that means parking farther away from your office and walking there, or going to the gym during lunch time, try to somehow integrate it into your day. And it’s difficult, when you have less time because you have a longer commute. But people who were able to do that were better off than the people who weren’t.”

Still, it is no longer something Lui needs to worry about. After coming in at 5:30 a.m., he works 7 and a half hours before leaving work at 1:00 p.m. On the twenty minute drive back (on average, Lui said) he plays a game, analyzing other drivers and trying to guess where they are going. Then he is home – just in time for lunch.