Poll finds Americans among most stressed people in the world

WASHINGTON (AA): A new study found Americans are among the most stressed people in the world and their anxiety levels have reached new heights.

More Americans reported feeling stress, worry and anger last year than at any point in the past decade.

Americans surveyed in the poll showed 55% experienced stress in the day, in comparison to the global population’s average of 35%.

This puts the U.S. just four percentage points behind Greece, the leader on the global stress rankings since 2012.

Among the other top countries to face stress were Philippines at 58%, Tanzania with 57%, Albania at 55% and Iran 55%.

In addition to stress, about 45% of Americans reported feeling worried a lot, in comparison to a 39% average for the rest of the world.

The percent of Americans, 22%, that felt anger frequently, however, was equal to the global average.

“The disconnect between a strong economy and Americans’ increasing negative emotions illustrates how GDP and other hard economic data only tell part of the story,” Gallup said in a press release.

When digging into the data, Gallup had found negative feelings Americans were feeling correlated with being under 50 years old, having a low income, and dissatisfaction with the job performance of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Gallup’s findings showed the U.S. did not have a dim of an outlook, outlining that Americans also reported more positive experiences, with 64% of those surveyed saying they had done something interesting the day prior. This is well about the the global average, of which 49% said that they had done something interesting.

The amount of negative experiences worldwide also was high, with the study saying the levels of negative experiences tied with 2017, known as the darkest year for humanity in over a decade.

The Gallup poll was conducted through telephone interviews with 1,004 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. It was conducted from Aug. 13- Sept. 30, 2018.