Maine is Sadly the Most Stressed State in New England

Mainers clearly need to chill out. That's at least according to a new study concerning stress.

Wallethub.com, a personal finance website, recently published its annual report of the most and least stressed states in the nation.

Our wonderful state didn't fare so well, especially compared to our New England brethren. The Pine Tree State was listed as the most stressed state in the region. Yes, even behind Connecticut.

Overall, Maine was listed as the 28th most stressed state in the nation. While not a terrible ranking, it pales in comparison to the rest of New England. The next highest ranking for a New England state came from Rhode Island. The tiny little nook was ranked 37th overall.

Maine's stressful score was 42.69 out of a possible 100 points. The scoring system is based on four major categories: Work-Related Stress, Money-Related Stress, Family-Related Stress, and Heal & Safety-Related Stress. These categories were broken down into 41 subcategories to make it as detailed as possible. You can read more about the methodology here.

Maine's rankings were rather consistent. The state had a state ranking of 31st for health and safety, 33rd for work-related, and 34th for family-related.

What really hurt Maine's stress ranking was in the money-related category, which saw our wonderful state ranked an ugly 13th. This was the proverbial nail in the coffin, which helped Maine earn its 28th ranking.

So, what about the rest of New England?

As mentioned earlier, Rhode Island came in as the 37th most stressed state. The rest of the region falls in the bottom 10, which in this case is a very good thing. Vermont was listed 40th, Connecticut 43rd, and Massachusetts 46th.

Congratulations to New Hampshire, which came in as the 3rd least stressed state in the entire nation. Apparently it pays to Live Free and Die. I mean, it makes sense to me.

While Maine's overall ranking isn't generally horrible, it still stinks compared to its closest peers. This begs the question of what can we do better here? What are other New England states doing that Maine isn't? The last thing this great state needs to be is a negative outlier compared to the rest of the northeastern region.

As rough as this ranking is for Maine, at least it's not Mississippi. The southern state is officially the most stressed state in the nation, with a whopping score of 58.8. I guess it's not all fine and dandy in the land of Dixie.