Chesterfield emerges as one of UK’s ‘most stressed’ towns

A study on Twitter by Babylon Health has revealed that Chesterfield is the most stressed place in Derbyshire- and the fifth most stressed place in the whole of the UK.

More than five million tweets were analysed by the health service provider over a two-week period, including every UK county and the UK’s 100 most populated cities, to find out where people are most likely to tweet about stress, frustration and anxiety.

Chesterfield came out fifth, with 10.76 per cent of its residents publishing ‘stressed’ tweets.

The tool TensiStrength was used to estimate the stress levels in these tweets, by analysing them on a scale of -1 (no stress) to -5 (very highly stressed), based on the classification of words used.

The below texts are examples of tweets that are ranked -5 (very highly stressed) on the TensiStrength scale:

“My job makes me f****** anxious and not even working right now”

“My back hurts when in the middle of my work. My back hurts horribly when on my days off”

“Who else is SUPER depressed about the state of healthcare as shown by the poor broke”

“You know it’s time to take a mental health break when you absolutely sob your heart out over papoose”

“Mental health is absolutely heartbreaking”

TensiStrength was developed by Mike Thelwall, Professor of IT at Wolverhampton University, and has been optimised for general short social web texts, such as tweets.

Thelwall said: “TensiStrength’s terms are not only synonyms for stress, anxiety and frustration but also terms related to anger and negative emotions because stress can be a response to negative events and can cause negative emotions.

“The list also includes stressors as additional indirect indicators in the belief that if someone describes situations that are likely causes of stress, such as being late, then they may be experiencing stress.”

THE TOP TEN MOST STRESSED PLACES IN THE UK

1) Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire - 13.8%

2) Cardiff, South Glamorgan - 11.97%

3 Hartlepool, County Durham - 11.67%

4) Newport, Gwent - 11.06%

5) Chesterfield, Derbyshire - 10.76%

6) Gateshead, Tyne and Wear - 10.72%

7) Dundee, Scotland - 10.69%

8) Blackpool, Lancashire - 10.66%

9) St. Helens, Merseyside - 10.6%

10) Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire - 10.56%