Incoming: a bunch of places in the U.S. where you’ll be more likely to get high blood pressure.

Let’s start by getting some basic questions out of the way.

Is my blood pressure really affected by where I live?

Yup. The real estate blog Movoto has made a neat little list of places in the United States where you’ll have a greater risk for high blood pressure.

So then I’ll also be finding out about places that I’d be less likely to have high blood pressure?

Absolutely.

Okay. And what is it about a place that causes higher blood pressure than somewhere else?

Stress is an everyday occurrence be it getting caught in traffic, piling paperwork in workplace and many other factors.

The real estate blog Movoto considered a few factors to determine stress levels in US states such as:

• Commute time
• Unemployment
• High cost of living
• Crime per 100,000 residents
• Hours worked
• Population density
• Percentage of income spent on rent

For the study, the data was obtained from the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey for 2008-2012 and the FBI. Each state was assigned a score of 1 to 100 in the seven individual criteria. The individual scores were converted into an average score. The city with the lowest score is the most stressed out city in America.

Based on their findings, Florida is considered to be the most stressed-out state owing to high unemployment rate which stands at 11.3 percent and a quarter of the population (about 26 percent) not having health insurance. Florida might be a place that reminds one of beaches, sunshine and fun, but that appears to be only for the vacationers!

The other US states with high levels of stress include:

Georgia: With the longest working hours of any US state and the highest rates of people with no working hours at all, Georgia easily finds a place in the highly-stressed out states list.

New Jersey: NJ is officially the most stressed-out state in Northeast USA with highest population density in the land, longest commute hours, and highest proportion of income spent on housing.

California: In western USA, California is the most stressed-out state owing to the high housing costs second only to New Jersey

Nevada: With an unemployment rate of 11.8 percent, Nevada is the second-highest stressed state in the country behind Michigan.

Other states that made it to the top ten include Illinois, New York, Maryland, North Carolina, and Arizona. Maryland deserves special mention, having the nation’s longest average commute time, one of the major stress factors among people.

North Dakota, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska were the least stressed-out states.

Moving over to a less stressful state or city is not often a possible option for many people. For those, making meaningful decisions related to starting from home well ahead of time, simple meditation when stuck in traffic and healthy breakfast options are some good ideas to cope with the stress.

Stress can pump up your blood pressure to deadly levels. Bad. It’s time to bring that blood pressure down to healthy levels – and here’s the catch: you can do that easily with just 3 simple exercises. Good.