It happened on a Wednesday morning. The Sandwich Man, dressed in a red T-shirt with white lettering, rode past me on his bicycle on the same stretch of the same road at the same time as the day before. I watched him roll by in a sobering moment that recalled all the horror of the five-day commute. The cyclical days, the shuffling masses, the dull ebbing of a scripted month.

Getting onto the westbound Central Line at rush-hour Liverpool Street is one of the most stressful things I do all week. Doing so five times would surely affect my frame of mind.

Of course, it’s important to remember that my homeland of the UK is one of the safest countries in the world. Moreover, according to Bloomberg’s data on the world’s most stressed countries, the UK is one of the calmer ones. Here’s how we fare compared against others.

MOST STRESSED COUNTRIES – METHODOLOGY

The first thing to note is that the ranking includes 74 countries only. Comprehensive data could not be found for every country in the world and the ranking is therefore restricted to only those countries that can be fairly compared.

Bloomberg’s study uses seven equally weighted variables: homicide rates, GDP per capita (adjusted for purchasing-power parity), income inequality, corruption perception, unemployment, urban air pollution and life expectancy.

Countries were allotted points for each variable based on their relative position in that category’s ranking. The country with the least-stressful measure for each variable received 0 points, while the country with the highest stress level received 100 points. All other countries were scored on a percentile basis depending on their position between the two extremes. Points for the seven variables were averaged for a final score from 0 to 100, a higher score indicating a more stressful living environment.

Only countries with data available for all seven variables were included.

MOST STRESSED COUNTRIES – RANKED

UR = Unemployment Rate (%)
LE = Life Expectancy (years at birth)

RANK	COUNTRY	SCORE	UR (%)	LE (YRS)
1	Nigeria	70.1	23.9	53
2	South Africa	70.0	25.7	58
3	El Salvador	57.6	5.7	72
4	Mongolia	55.4	6.1	68
5	Guatemala	55.1	4.1	69
6	Colombia	53.6	10.3	78
7	Pakistan	52.7	9.2	67
8	Jamaica	52.3	13.0	75
9	Macedonia	52.0	30.0	75
10	Bolivia	51.5	5.4	67
11	Iran	51.4	13.4	73
12	Venezuela	51.1	7.8	75
13	Bosnia and He…	50.2	27.0	76
14	India	48.9	9.9	65
15	Egypt	46.4	13.6	73
16	Mexico	46.3	4.8	75
17	Brazil	45.3	6.0	74
18	Philippines	45.2	7.0	69
19	Bangladesh	45.0	5.0	70
19	Ecuador	45.0	5.8	76
21	Tunisia	44.8	16.7	76
22	Panama	44.3	4.2	77
23	Bulgaria	44.2	12.4	74
23	Peru	44.2	6.8	77
25	Indonesia	43.8	6.1	69
25	Russia	43.8	5.5	69
27	Sri Lanka	43.4	4.9	75
28	Serbia	42.7	23.0	74
29	China	42.3	4.1	76
30	Greece	41.8	27.0	81
31	Argentina	40.1	7.1	76
32	Turkey	38.5	9.4	76
33	Costa Rica	37.8	6.5	79
34	Latvia	37.5	13.3	74
35	Thailand	37.1	0.7	74
36	Croatia	36.1	15.2	77
37	South Korea	35.9	3.3	69
38	Lithuania	35.8	12.0	74
39	Romania	35.6	7.0	74
40	Chile	34.4	6.5	79
41	Belarus	34.1	0.6	71
42	Mauritius	33.9	8.0	74
43	Portugal	33.8	18.3	80
44	Spain	33.1	27.0	82
44	Slovakia	33.1	14.3	76
46	Poland	32.8	11.0	76
47	Uruguay	32.4	6.5	77
48	Italy	30.4	12.0	82
49	Czech Republic	30.3	8.1	78
50	Hungary	30.0	10.5	75
51	Israel	28.6	7.0	82
52	Estonia	28.1	7.8	76
53	Cyprus	27.3	12.1	81
54	United States	25.7	7.7	79
55	Malta	25.4	6.4	80
56	Slovenia	24.6	9.8	80
56	United Kingdom	24.6	7.8	80
58	Ireland	24.3	14.2	81
59	France	22.8	11.2	82
60	Japan	19.9	4.1	83
61	Belgium	19.4	8.0	80
62	Singapore	19.2	2.0	82
63	Austria	17.1	4.6	81
64	Netherlands	16.9	6.3	81
65	Canada	16.6	7.3	82
65	Germany	16.6	5.7	81
67	Iceland	15.4	5.0	82
68	Finland	14.9	8.1	81
69	Denmark	13.8	7.6	79
70	Australia	12.2	5.3	82
71	Sweden	12.1	8.1	82
72	Switzerland	9.2.0	3.2	83
73	Luxembourg	7.1.0	6.3	82
74	Norway	5.4.0	3.1	81

Source: Bloomberg, 2013 (via United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, International Monetary Fund, Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, Transparency International, World Health Organization)

(Lead image: Dreamstime)