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It's safe to say that the past year has been stressful for everyone, but a new survey says Rochester is actually one of the least stressed cities in the country.

That bit of good news for those of us here in southeast Minnesota comes from a new survey out Wednesday from the crew over at RetailMeNot.com. According to a release, researchers examined several different categories when compiling this new ranking of stressful U.S. cities. They looked at mental and physical health, housing costs, poverty rates, and the percentage of the population with health insurance, among other factors and then generated a stress score for each U.S. city.

And, luckily for us, Rochester's stress score was only 11 (out of 100!) making Minnesota's Med City the fifth least-stressed, according to RetailMeNot. The Most Stressed-Out Small City (the category Rochester is in, with populations between 100,000 and 149,900) was Patterson, New Jersey (with a stress score of over 91), while Newark, New Jersey was the Most Stressed-Out Medium City (with a stress score of over 93.) The Most Stressed-Out Large City in the U.S. was Memphis, Tennessee (with a stress score of over 89.)

Rah-Rah-Rochester came in below the national average of stressed-out cities in just about every category the survey measured, including scores for mental and physical health, percentage of the population with insurance, poverty rates, even housing costs, and the percentage of the population who get more than 7 hours of sleep!

I don't know that Rochester being ranked as the fifth least-stressed city in the country actually makes OUR lives any less stressful, but perhaps there's some small comfort in knowing that things aren't quite as stressful here as they are elsewhere. One thing, though, that CAN be stressful is a stretch of bitter cold winter weather-- which we certainly are used to here in southeast Minnesota. In fact, our fair city has also been ranked as one of the coldest in the U.S. Keep scrolling to see where we rank!

Listen to Curt St. John from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5
and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

BRRRR: The 15 Coldest Cities in America

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