YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN: AREA NOT AMONG MOST-STRESSED
All 39 municipalities in Palm Beach County shined their way past the list for the most- and leaststressed cities in America. WalletHub, a personal finance website, used four key categories in the data-driven study: work stress, financial stress, family stress and health and safety stress.
Miami, unfortunately, cracked the top 30, while Hialeah ranked 60 and Pembroke Pines ranked 163.
What sets Palm Beach County apart?
Are South Floridians, particularly those living in Palm Beach County, managing stress better than those in other U.S. cities? Is the county enamored with enough stress-relieving activities? Perhaps.
Out of the 180 U.S. cities across 37 key metrics, including 150 of the most-populated U.S. cities, notoriously stressful cities like Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco surprisingly escaped the top 10 list for the most-stressed category.
The top 5 most-stressed cities: No. 1 is Detroit; followed by Newark, New Jersey; Cleveland; Birmingham, Alabama; and Toledo, Ohio.
Top 5 least-stressed: Fremont, California; Bismarck, North Dakota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Overland Park, Kansas; and South Burlington, Vermont.
The study also made the distinction between acute versus chronic stress. Acute stress, in its manageable doses, can, in fact, be a positive aspect of dayto-day life.
“When stress reaches an unmanageable level, however, it turns chronic. That’s when we become vulnerable to its damaging effects such as health problems and loss of productivity,” say researchers of the study. “In the U.S., stress affects more than 100 million people. The leading causes? Money tops the list, followed by work, family and relationships. By one estimate, workplace-related stress alone costs society more than $300 billion per year.”