Brace yourself for this newsflash. According to a recent study, the world’s population is feeling a bit … ill at ease.
Gallup, a global data analytics company, and the World Health Summit, an annual gathering of leaders and changemakers, recently collaborated on a report titled “State of the World’s Emotional Health.”
Based on interviews with 145,000 people in 144 countries, the report found that nearly 4 out of 10 adults around the world felt “a lot of worry” the day before they were interviewed.
A similar number, 37%, said they felt stressed. About 26% felt sad, 22% felt angry and 32% were in physical pain.
Once converted to scale, these numbers had risen by hundreds of millions compared to similar polls from a decade ago. Billions of people on Earth are “living with distress.”
In spite of the bump in global gloom, the participants did express some encouraging sparks of happiness.
73% of the adults surveyed said they smiled or laughed a lot the day before. The same number said they felt enjoyment. 72% also reported that they felt well rested.
The best news? 88% of global adults feel like they are being treated with respect. That’s one of the highest levels of emotional health that Gallup has ever measured.
The report’s intention was to to show “how peace, health and emotional wellbeing rise and fall together,” by pairing Gallup’s World Poll data with the Institute for Economics & Peace’s Global Peace Index and Positive Peace Index.
“Worry, stress, sadness and anger affect hundreds of millions of people daily, with levels higher than a decade ago. These emotions are not fleeting states of mind. They shape physical health, determine resilience and — when prolonged — undermine mental health, societal stability and peace. Where peace is fragile, negative emotions intensify. Where peace is strong, populations live longer, healthier lives,” World Health Summit CEO Carsten Schicker said in the report.
