If you had to rate your stress on a scale of 1 (completely stressed out) to 10 (completely relaxed), where would you fall? Well, on average Americans land squarely in the center – somewhere between a 5 and a 6 on a 10 point scale.
Only 1 in 10 say they feel right on the edge of a cliff (paraphrasing here for the 1-2 group), while about 1 in 7 say they feel mostly peaceful and calm (paraphrasing for the 9-10 group). But it appears that for most of us, it’s impossible to entirely relax. In fact:
- 75% say to some extent they are just getting by.
- 55% say it’s hard to avoid stress.
- 55% say it’s hard to get the right amount of sleep.
- 44% have trouble avoiding getting upset about small things.
- 36% find it difficult to relax and do nothing.
- 32% say it’s hard to put aside work and focus on their personal lives.
Despite the plethora of celebrity doctors giving advice on Twitter and stress management techniques coming from anywhere from the Mayo Clinic to Wikipedia, more than 7 in 10 adults say that at least somewhat, they would like a re-do on their life.
Is it the bills, the mid-life crisis, the post-partum depression, the stop-and-start career, just life in general? Who knows why, but clearly we all need a little more TLC and support on a daily basis to figure out how to manage our stress.
And by the way, I’m not sure who those 10’s are on the scale above, but I sure would like to meet them.
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