Here’s How Stressed Phoenix Really Is

PHOENIX, AZ — Social media posts show two Phoenix-area cities have totally opposing stress levels. One city could be considered one of the most relaxed metros in the U.S., while the other might be one of the most frantic. That’s according to Babylon Health, a health care and tech company that analyzed data gathered from 5 million tweets in real-time over two consecutive weeks. Tweets were taken from every state and the 100 most populated cities and towns, as well as each New York borough.

Glendale and Mesa came in at opposite ends of the list. Tweets coming in from Mesa were considered the 5th most stressed out. Of the 16,686 tweets analyzed, 12.59 percent were “stressed,” the researchers found. The same study found Glendale as one of the least stressed cities, just above St. Paul, Minnesota as having the most calm tweets. Of the 909 tweets looked at, 7.37 percent were considered frenzied.

Meanwhile, Arizona ranked as the 9th most stressed out state in the country, with 10.98 percent of tweets suggesting users have come undone. The most trying time of day here is apparently morning, and the toughest day of the week is Tuesday.

TensiStrength, a tool developed by an IT university professor in England, was used to conduct the tweet analysis. The tool aims to identify words related to stress and relaxation, as well as anger and other negative emotions, to predict how the person is feeling. For example, people tweeting about being late or having car trouble would be identified as stressed.

The tool estimates stress levels based on the classification of the words in the text. The scale is roughly as follows: -1 (no stress), -2 (low stress), -3 (moderate stress), -4 (high stress), -5 (extreme stress).

The final rankings were determined based on locations with the highest share of tweets that were classified as “moderately stressed” or higher.

The most stressed out tweeters in America reside in Hialeah, Florida, the analysis found, with more than 13 percent of the city’s 5,266 tweets classified as at least moderately stressed. San Bernardino, California, was the second most-stressed city, followed by North Las Vegas, Nevada, and Mesa, Arizona.

Californians might consider taking up meditation or yoga — six cities in the Golden State ranked in the top 10 of most stressed out. Here are the 10.

1. Hialeah, FL, 13.03 percent
2. San Bernardino, CA, 12.87 percent
3. North Las Vegas, NV, 12.76 percent
4. Mesa, AZ, 12.59 percent
5. Chula Vista, CA, 12.03 percent
6. Bakersfield, CA, 11.96 percent
7. Toledo, OH, 11.92 percent
8. Stockton, CA, 11.91 percent
9. Santa Ana, CA, 11.89 percent
10. Riverside, CA, 11.86 percent

St. Paul, Minnesota, is either a stress-free oasis or better at masking stress than the rest of us. Just 2.56 percent of tweets analyzed were “moderately” stressed or worse, the analysis found. For context, that’s nearly 5 percentage points lower than the next least-stressed out city, Glendale, Arizona, which saw 7.37 percent of stressed-out tweets.

Stress can be healthy, health experts say. It can help you build skills necessary to handle life-threatening situations, for example.

But according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stress can be harmful if experienced for a prolonged period of time or if stress-levels are severe enough to make a person feel overwhelmed and out of control.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.