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Princess survey reveals America's most stressed-out cities

October 22, 2009

Chicago is America’s most stressed-out city and Miami is the least, according to the the Princess Cruises Life Balance Barometer survey.

Not surprisingly, Princess also found that a vacation can be an antidote to that stress.

Houston, Boston, Los Angeles and San Diego also made the top-five list of most stressed-out cities.

Miami was joined by Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Las Vegas and Dallas/Fort Worth as places where people claim to have " the most amount of life balance."

Jan Swartz, Princess’ executive vice president, said the cruise line did the survey "because we believe we offer Americans the perfect escape from their busy, frenetic lives; a way for people to break away from their everyday routine to refresh and relax."

She added that Princess hoped to determine what stressed people needed to do to get back on track.

"While it's clear from the results that many people do not have life balance, we were pleased to see that one of the key enablers to living a balanced life was taking a vacation," she said.

"In fact, we discovered there is a direct correlation between taking vacations and having a balanced life, as 64% of people who say they have attained life balance have taken a vacation in the last year."

According to the survey, 72% of Americans said they do not have balance in their lives. They cited financial stress, the poor economy and the need to lose weight and get fit as the main reasons why.

The top things Americans said would help them achieve better life balance were realizing financial success, improving physical fitness, getting organized and taking more breaks and vacations.

But the survey also found that Americans weren’t taking their own advice. One in four Americans were not planning to take all their vacation days this year, with 40% of that group citing work-related reasons.

Instead of vacationing, the top five things Americans said they did to relieve stress at the end of the day were changing clothes, laying down, kissing their partner, playing with their pet and reading.

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#12October 25, 2009
I really have no qualms with Princess, I've cruised Princess, enjoyed the experience and the service, recommend it, and sell them, but the survey seems self-serving. The article does not address the statistical accuracy, how it was conducted, what percentage or number of people were polled, cities included or excluded, or if it was a scientific survery. It seems slanted, only reporting self-serving desireable conclusions. Cities are not stressed, the people in them maybe to various degrees, at various times and others may not be, living with balance. There is also positive and negative stress. The survey would be more creditable had Princess contracted a professional independant agency to conduct it.
#11October 23, 2009
I'm surprised Atlanta is not on the list. We have some of the worst traffic in the US and a high unemployment rate. Many people are just trying to hold on to their jobs!
#10October 23, 2009
I live in Miami and can certainly say that it IS a stressed out city. Their findings really make me question the validity of the survey!
#9October 23, 2009
I live in San Diego. It was no "shocker" to me. Cost of living is one of the most expensive in the country and salaries are low. Even a college educated, hard working, honest professional like myself needs two jobs to survive here. Don't get me wrong, the city is beautiful and the weather is a dream, but we certainly pay for it.
#8October 23, 2009
I agree with #6. LA is no shocker. Anyone who's ever lived and worked there for any length of time know it is a town full of workaholics, horrible commutes (by car since mass transit is almost non-existent) and the terrible pressure of trying to keep up with the Kardashian's, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, et. al.
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