Illinois Named The 10th Least Stressed State In America

Stress is one of the biggest factors that looms over the heads of us as humans. There are so many different ways that stress affects our lives daily. The amount of sleep we get in a night, our eating habits and appetite, our emotions and feelings, and so much more can all be affected by the amount of stress we have in our lives. Some can handle more levels of stress than others but stress does affect us all and can come about in many different ways.

Physical stress can be one of the most aggravating ways for stress to show up. Physical stress will cause unnecessary pain in many different parts of your body including but not limited to back muscles, internal organs, and even your brain. This can cause stomachaches, back pain, headaches, and worse. There is also mental stress, which can cause one to have dysregulated emotions but also mental exhaustion. This can make making decisions and remaining calm much harder than it normally is, which creates other problems as well.

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The study conducted by mental health facility Onyx Behavioral Health explored data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to see which states had the lowest rates of people reporting stress. The US average was found to be a percentage of 15.90% of Americans reporting frequent mental distress and 12.40% reporting frequent physical distress, which is an average of 14.15%.

Illinois just barely scratches the surface of the Top 10 but they do as they are ranked the 10th least stressed state in all of America. In the entire country, there are only 9 states that report being less stressed than Illinois. Illinois only had 13.70% of adults reporting mental distress more than half of the last 30 days and 12.50% of adults reporting physical distress more than half of the last 30 days, with an average of 13.10% reporting some form of stress.

When asked about what they found, a spokesperson from Onyx Behavioral Health said: “While these states may have low rates of stress compared to other areas, an interesting thing to note is that the newest 2022 data shows an increase on average across the US in mental and physical distress. While there may not be an exact reason for this, factors may include a rising cost of living through inflation and increasing tensions around the world, and it will be interesting to see if this increasing trend continues in further editions of this data.”