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East to West, Americans are feeling under greater stress

Stress is up everywhere in the nation.

But if you live on the East or West Coast, you’re either proud of all the stress you’re under or too stressed to care.

A new national survey on the state of stress in America, to be released Wednesday by the American Psychological Association, finds that money and work are the biggest stressors for almost three-quarters (73 percent and 74 percent respectively) of Americans, up from 59 percent for both last year.

Overall, housing costs worry 51 percent of the 1,848 adults polled last month by Harris Interactive for the APA. Housing is a “very significant or somewhat significant” source of stress for 61 percent of residents in the West and 55 percent of those in the East, compared with 47 percent in the Midwest and 43 percent in the South.

About one-third (32 percent) of those responding to the online survey report regularly experiencing extreme levels of stress.

Pressure is increasing

“I think it reflects a real change in the pressures that people feel in their lives,” said Michael Baime, a physician and director of the Penn Program for Stress Management at the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia.

Janet Sweitzer, a single mother of two who will turn 39 on Friday, said she is feeling greater stress because of rising housing costs. She bought a condominium in Weston, Fla., 2 1/2 years ago, and now its value has dropped. She has two mortgages and rising payments.

“I have to work overtime now to compensate for almost $400 more I have to make per month,” said Sweitzer, who works in sales at a call center for a telecommunications company. “I don’t have as much time to monitor my kids and help them with homework.”

Miami-based psychologist and stress expert Terry Lyles said people living on a tight budget today are really in trouble. “In many cases, you’re just trying to keep your house out of foreclosure. The stress of that carries over to work, home, relationships — everything.”

The study also found residents of the East and West are more likely to report physical symptoms of stress and are less effective at managing stress.

å Adults in the West are more likely to report headaches (53 percent versus 38 percent to 42 percent in the other regions), upset stomach (41 percent versus 30 percent-32 percent) and tightness in the chest (21 percent versus 12 percent-15 percent).

å People living in the East are more likely to consider work as a stressor, with heavy workload (53 percent versus 33 percent-43 percent), lack of participation in decision-making (42 percent versus 29 percent-30 percent) and inflexible hours (31 percent versus 13 percent-27 percent) among the reasons.

Middle America just as stressed

Although Lyles said stress has always seemed higher on the coasts, he is seeing high stress everywhere, largely because of technology, which he believes has produced a nation of multitaskers who “never have time to recharge your batteries.”

“I’ve never been busier in my entire career,” he said. “What’s happening is people’s lives get more complicated all the time. The computer age has made the world a smaller place. People in Middle America are just as stressed out as anybody else.”

The survey found that nearly half (48 percent) of Americans believe that their stress has increased over the past five years.

A significantly higher percentage of people in the East (39 percent) and West (36 percent) say it is difficult to balance work and family life than people living in the Midwest (29 percent) and South (25 percent).

While Baime says the geographic differences are “telling,” he adds that cultural differences also may account for responses. “In some groups, there’s something wrong with you if you don’t say you’re stressed, and in other groups it’s unacceptable or inappropriate to disclose any feelings of stress or tension,” he says.

Kathleen Gerson, a sociologist at New York University, said people on the East and West coasts do develop a different way of thinking about their lives and may be more accepting of the stresses that go along with life. “It makes sense that in those environments, where busyness is common and highly valued, people may be more likely to define what they’re feeling as stress,” she says.

And unlike 100 years ago, Gerson says, today being busy is something of a status symbol.

“We’re proud of being busy,” she says. “Stress may fall into that category. It used to be something you didn’t want to acknowledge, and now it’s a marker of how important you are to be juggling all these responsibilities.”