Don't let this cause you any anxiety, but a recent WalletHub study found that Louisville is the nation's 71st most stressed large city.
That's not bad, but we could do better. One area for improvement is workplace stress, where Louisville is the 47th most stressed city. Dr. Courtney Keim, an associate professor of psychology, offered WalletHub some tips for reducing workplace stress, one of the main influencers of a city's psychological health.
In their analysis of 182 cities, WalletHub's study looked at 37 factors that affect stress across four overall categories: workplace, health and safety, personal finance, and family. Louisville's worst score was in health and safety, ranking as the nation's 26th most stressed city. Family life is pretty good in Louisville, according to WalletHub, which said we're the 162nd most stressed city when it comes to our loved ones.
WalletHub asked Keim how organizations can make their workplaces less stressful. She said she appreciated the emphasis on the employers' role. "Often we think of work-related stress as something that an employee is responsible for," she said. "For example, some organizations will offer meditation, stress management, or well-being classes. While these are all positive steps to support employees, they focus on the coping of stress after some stressful event has occurred. They do not address the reason why the stress occurred in the first place."
Drawing on decades of available research from the fields of industrial-organizational and occupational health psychology, Keim - who specializes in research on organizational wellness and workplace stress - says there are five key factors that influence work-related stress:
- lack of control and predictability
- lack of clarity and variety in work tasks
- lack of skills use and clear goals
- relationship building and social value
- health, safety and security
Keim's recommendations include giving employees some control over their work schedules to allow for work-life flexibility, offering more training and job security, making sure employees see their part in the organization's overall mission and ensuring that employee recognition is both formal and informal - name an employee of the month, but also ensure supervisors are routinely praising good work. She also notes the need for workplace mental health and physical health programs.
"Employees will perceive less work-related stress if they know what is expected of them, receive feedback on how they are doing, and have variety in their work tasks, roles, or routines," she said. "They should feel their input matters."
Read her detailed advice on how organizations can lower workplace stress in each of those categories - and see how other U.S. cities scored - at
WalletHub.com.