The United States of Stress: Survey reveals country’s most and least stressed states

A study has ranked all 50 US states in terms of stress, and the results may not be what you’d expect.

Based on data from the US Census and a number of government agencies, WalletHub measured each state’s stress levels in four categories: work, money, family, and health and safety. The site then combined these numbers into a total score, which determined each state’s spot on the list.

The winner for most-stressed state in the Union was Louisiana, followed by Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Mississippi.

At the bottom of the list, the least-stressed state was Utah, followed by Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire.

Readers expecting to see states with large cities at the high-stress end might be surprised. New York was dead center in the list, at No 25. Other states with large urban centers were also toward the middle, with California at No 14 and Illinois at No 37.

A better predictor of which states topped the list would be poverty. Among the top five most-stressed states, four are among the nation’s five poorest states, according to the same data set: Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, and West Virginia.

Similarly, three of the five least-stressed states were among the country’s richest: New Hampshire, Utah, and Minnesota.

WalletHub broke down each of its stress categories into a wide range of specific indicators, including hours of sleep, hours of work, divorce rates, housing prices, crime rates, and even the number of psychiatrists or psychologists in a state.

The results were interesting. The state where residents got the fewest hours of sleep, according to WalletHub, was Hawaii. The state where people worked the most hours per week was Alaska. The state with the highest divorce rate was Nevada. And the state with the most crime and fewest psychologists was Louisiana.

As part of its report, WalletHub also included quotes from experts on how to manage stress. One of them, Dr Maryanna Klatt of the Ohio State University College of Medicine, said self-understanding can make a huge impact.

“I am convinced that above the lowest [financial] threshold, awareness of what brings us joy versus what stresses us out is the most important thing to sculpt a life worth living,” Dr Klatt wrote. “Awareness is free – hard to uncover, but totally worth it, as then you can utilize your stress to find solutions to deal with it – rather than wasting much energy trying to set ourselves up in a lifestyle that avoids stress.”