NYC was just ranked one of the most anxiety-inducing cities in the world

Spend one hour in NYC and you’ll be filled with the sort of panic, stress and fervor that us New Yorkers have come to define as part and parcel of our personalities. Believe it or not, though, according to a new study, other cities across the world are more anxiety-inducing than the Big Apple is.

A new ranking by luggage storage blog Radical Storage specifically looks at 31 indicators of anxiety, analyzing 97,409 reviews of tourist attractions in the one hundred most traveled to towns in the world to come up with a global list of most nerve-wracking destinations globally, and New York lands at number eight.

Tokyo in Japan tops the list, with one in four reviews analyzing mentioning words and phrases related to anxiety.

“Tokyo is the largest city in the world and home to 13,515,271 people,” reads the survey. “It’s perhaps unsurprising that 60% of the anxiety indicators mentioned feeling crowded.”

Two other Japanese cities actually round out the top three: Osaka at number two and Kyoto right after that.

When looking at data related to Osaka, the study mentions one of the city’s most popular attractions: Universal Studios theme park, the first to open outside of the United States.

“However, many visitors to the theme park mentioned crowds or overcrowding,” reports the website. “One said it was so overcrowded, that staying in bed would have been a better tourist activity. Another visitor said they were left in tears by their visit.”

As for Kyoto, the major source of stress seems to be the overtourism.

“One [visitor] described avigating through the traditional Geisha district of Gion as ‘torture,’ and another titled their visit to the food markets at Nishiki Market Shopping District as ‘What market? All I saw was crowds,” reads the study. 

But back to New York: although we’re happy not to be the most anxiety-inducing destination in the world, we can’t help but notice that we’re the only U.S. city in the top ten list. Let’s be honest, though: we wouldn’t ever consider living anywhere else.

The 10 most anxiety-inducing cities in the world: 

1. Tokyo
2. Osaka
3. Kyoto
4. London
5. Shanghai
6. Beijing
7. Phuket
8. New York
9. Prague
10. Paris