Contrary to the opinion of the very people slaving away in the cold, merciless economic machine that is Singapore, the Little Red Dot is not one of the most stressful cities in the world. In fact, it’s the least stressful Asian city, according to a study carried out by European on-demand laundry and dry cleaning service Zipjet. No, really.
In fact, the country’s ranked way below the top tier, sitting pretty at number 109 out of the 150 cities in the ranking. According to Zipjet’s study, the title for the most stressful city in the world goes to Baghdad, in Iraq. Because, you know, ISIS.
In fact, the top tier of the list is populated by African and Middle-Eastern nations with the likes of Kabul (#2), Lagos (#3), Cairo (#5) and Dhaka (#7). Our Southeast Asian neighbors Manila claims the title as the 10th-most stressful city, while fellow ASEAN members fared a wee bit better with Jakarta sitting at number 19; Kuala Lumpur at number 41; Bangkok at number 47; Ho Chi Minh at 45.
How Zipjet determines the rankings is by examining the overall mental health of each city through stress-inducing factors such as unemployment, debt per capita, public transport, pollution, physical health and even race equality.
Singapore, on the other hand, is placed in the lower-end of the list together with European and American cities. The city excels in aspects such as public transport (hah!), perception of security and employment, but did poorly in things like light pollution (true) and population density. Still, Singapore’s considered the least stressful Asian country in the list — though many, many of us would beg to differ.
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