Most Relaxed Cities in America

If you have a problem relaxing, you may be in the wrong city.  It can be physically painful to live in areas that have heavy traffic, high unemployment and long working hours.  It takes its toll on your health to live in stressful environments.  This can cause anything from headaches and back pain to high blood pressure and heart disease. 

To get away from the rat race, where is a good place to escape?  Mellow metropolitan areas in the nation look to Minneapolis-St. Paul as the number one in our list of most relaxed cities. 

First, to pinpoint cities that are lowest in stress, they used the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  They score them according to lower unemployment ranks.  Then, they used data from the 2008 Community Survey conducted by the US Census Bureau to analyze other data points, including how much time is spent working and commuting. 

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranked metros on health factors. including whether most residents have access to health care and how their overall health is.  Lastly, cities scored higher if more people reported exercise and any kind of workout in the past month. 

Unemployment at 7% in Minneapolis-St. Paul isn't the stress-inducer it is elsewhere.  Less than 5% spend their morning stuck in traffic and 84% reported exercise.  This is the best workout rate of any city surveyed.  This metro area scored high for its percentage of people with medical coverage and good general physical health. 

The five highest ranking cities are: 

1. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

2. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 

3. Boston, Mass. 

4. Portland, Oregon 

5. Columbus, Ohio