This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Feeling a little stressed?
If so, you've got plenty of company among fellow Utahns.
A new Gallup poll identifies Utah as one of the nation's five most-stressed state based on respondents' answer to the question: "Did you experience [stress] during a lot of the day yesterday?"
A total of 44.6 percent of Utahns answered "yes" to the question, ranking Utah behind West Virginia (47.1 percent); Rhode Island (46.3 percent); and Kentucky (44.8 percent). Massachusetts (43.4 percent) was the fifth-most-stressed state.
Gallup based its state-by-state data on daily surveys conducted from January through December 2012, according to a news release. More than 353,000 adults were surveyed as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
Nationwide, 40.6 percent of Americans reported feeling stressed "yesterday" according to the poll.
Gallup said it has measured daily stress as part of its well-being index since 2008. Utah, Kentucky and West Virginia have been among the most-stressed states for each of the past five years, the pollster said. Utah was the top state for stress in 2009 and 2010.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Hawaii has ranked as the least-stressed state in all five years of the survey.
This year, 32.1 percent of respondents in Hawaii reported having felt stressed a lot of the previous day. The other four low-stress states were Louisiana (37.6 percent); Mississippi (37.9 percent); Iowa (38.1 percent); and Wyoming (38.6 percent).