Having a bad day NJ? Study shows bad day rank among other states

“Because you had a bad day, you're taking one down.

You sing a sad song just to turn it around.

You say you don't know, you tell me, don't lie.

You work at a smile and you go for a ride.”

— Daniel Powter

We’ve all been there. Whether you didn’t get that ticket to Hollywood on “American Idol” or your car died in the fast lane on the New Jersey Turnpike or that annoying co-worker canceled his day off, we’ve all had bad days.

The worst bad days are those when you can’t even pinpoint just what’s wrong. Everything just feels off, and you want to pause time and disappear in a hole for a while.

To find out if different states have more bad days than others, Manhattan Mental Health Counseling did a study recently. They compared states for an average number of physically unhealthy days and also for mentally unhealthy days. They averaged those together to arrive at several ‘bad days.’

You might think that with the stress of life in New Jersey, the taxes, the unaffordable homes, etc., New Jersey is at the top of the list for having ‘bad days.’ And you’d be wrong.

According to their study, the state of West Virginia is having more bad days than any other state. With an average number of physically unhealthy days at 4.5 and an average number of mentally unhealthy days at 6.2, that works out to 5.35 bad days per year and is the most of any state.

Probably to no one’s surprise, the paradise state of Hawaii has the fewest bad days, with only 3. What? Sarah Marshall has a bad day in Hawaii, so I can’t have a bad day in Hawaii?

New Jersey is actually in pretty good spirits overall. We rank 38th for bad days, meaning 37 states are having bad days more often than we are. We average 3.2 days a year feeling physically off and 4.4 days feeling mentally off. This adds up to a score of 3.8 bad days per year.

So good for us. Now get off the couch and go out and make things happen, champ! And if you do have one of those bad days, blame it on Pennsylvania!

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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