This Map Shows The Most Stressed Out States In America

It’s probably impossible to come across someone who isn’t feeling at least a little bit of stress. We know it’s a part of life. And it certainly comes with the title of parent — and these are not normal times, either. But it’s possible that the amount of stress we’re all under is more intense than usual.

After all, according to American Psychological Association, stress is at an all-time high in the United States right now, and “we are facing a national mental health crisis that could yield serious health and social consequences for years to come.” While stress seems like a universal thing, not everyone worries about the same things. And not all states have the same level of worry. If you’re curious, there’s a map that highlights which states are more stressed-out than the others.

WalletHub wanted to find out which of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, was experiencing the most stress. They looked at different key indicators of stress since stress comes from many different sources. From there, they determined the places that achieve a more relaxing life, and which ones don’t.

“Our data set ranges from average hours worked per week to the personal bankruptcy rate to the share of adults getting adequate sleep,” WalletHub explains. “We evaluated those dimensions using 41 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of stress,” they continued.

From there, the data sets were weighted with an average across all the metrics and the overall score was used to rank the states in order of states from most stressed to least.

Source: WalletHub

Taking a quick look at the map, where the darker the blue indicates the more stress people have in the state, it looks like the southern states experience more stress than the Northern states. And that holds true when looking at the data collected and sorted, too.

The 5 most stressed-out states:

1. Louisiana
2. Nevada
3. New Mexico
4. West Virginia
5. Mississippi

The 5 least stressed-out states:

1. Utah
2. Minnesota
3. South Dakota
4. Wisconsin
5. New Hampshire