87% of Australians Stressed

Release date: 13 Jul 2009

A national poll commissioned by Lifeline Australia has found that 87% of the community is stressed.  More alarmingly, 41% of Australians indicated they are experiencing unhealthy levels of stress.

The poll, performed annually for Lifeline Australia by Newspoll and analysed by Orima Research, has found that 'work' is the number one stressor for Australians this year followed by 'finances', 'thoughts about the future', 'health' and 'personal relationships'.

Other results from the poll show that in general, people are less stressed this year about their health and about the future.Also, women are more stressed than men, people who live in big cities are more stressed than people who live in the country, single people are generally more stressed, and the more people earn, the more stressed they get.

"What's really interesting about this year's results is that slightly less people are stressed this year, than last, when 91% indicated some level of stress," Dawn O'Neil, CEO of Lifeline Australia said.

"However, at the same time, work stress is on the up with 73% of working Australians indicating they were stressed about work and 17% saying they were very stressed about it."

Work results do not include people who are unemployed, for whatever reason.

"Another interesting result is that people are slightly less concerned about finances this year. Six interest rate drops since last year's poll, as well as Commonwealth stimulus handouts, may be responsible for this result.

"However, what our annual national poll has shown us, regardless of the drops, is that people in Australia are still experiencing high levels of stress in their lives. Unmanaged stress can lead to a number of mental health and wellbeing issues.

"In our modern world, stress is an issue for us as a community.We know that small amounts of stress can sometimes help us, but each year, these results are showing us that we are no longer just feeling a little bit of stress.

"This poll is part of our push to get Australia to stress less.Extreme levels of stress can lead to real and lasting mental and physical health problems, like anxiety, depression, back and neck pain and heart problems," Ms O'Neil said.

To help the country stress less, Lifeline Australia is holding Stress Down Day, on Friday 24 July.For more information, go to www.stressdown.org.au or text the word 'stressdown' to 0485 4RELAX.

For a full summary of the results contact Lifeline

Media Contact: Chris Wagner, Lifeline Australia (ph: 02 6215 9446 or 0434 378 939)