NPR, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently surveyed over 2,500 Americans nationwide to find out how stressed its citizens are.
Conducted in March and April this year, it examines the population’s experiences with stress, attitudes towards stress, its perceived effects, and how people handle it.
Distilled into graphs and heat maps, the findings reveal that 49% of the respondents reported having a major stressful event or experience in the past year.
The most common source of stress was health problems, with 60% of respondents citing high stress levels due to poor health, followed by the death of a loved one, and work problems.
When it came to breaking down the causes of stress among different age groups, young people aged between 18 to 29 reported feeling overwhelmed by too many responsibilities, while those aged between 30 to 39 were the most stressed about finances.
The poll also found that the three most common responses to stress were sleeping less than usual, eating less and exercising less.
Check out these findings and more below, and read the full report here.
[via Fast Company and NPR, images via NPR]