San Jose among the least stressed cities? Give me a break!
San Jose among the nation’s least stressed cities? Give me a break!
Downtown San Jose, Calif., rises to the northeast of the Interstate 280-Highway 87 interchange in this aerial view taken Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 2, 2015, in San Jose, Calif.
San Jose has again placed high in another national survey. But this latest one from WalletHub stunningly has it ranked as the eighth least-stressed city in the United States. Seriously? We’re so stressed around here even the yoga instructors have high blood pressure.
Did we wake up in a Bizarro universe where the traffic, housing instability, and high cost of living all induce a soothing effect? That doesn’t even take into account the scooters zipping along the sidewalks, which I’m sure leave some people in a perpetual state of flinching.
The rankings were based on four major areas: Work Stress, Financial Stress, Family Stress and Health and Safety Stress. Under those broad headings, the factors that seem to make the San Jose residents come off as calm and collected are that compared to the rest of the country, San Joseans get a lot of sleep, don’t work long hours (38 per week, according to the survey) and have a lot of job security.
Sound like anyone you know? Me neither. Another statistic sure to raise eyebrows: San Jose’s average commute time was 28.5 minutes; Fremont came in at 32.8. And those numbers weighted down the negative side of the stress scale for both cities.
Interestingly, both San Jose and Fremont were noted for having a low divorce rate, which would indicated a lot of low-stressed marriages. But maybe everyone is so busy looking down at their phones, they’re not even noticing when things are falling apart around them.
The one factor I thought would weigh in San Jose’s low-stress favor is the fantastic weather, but that doesn’t seem to have been accounted for at all. Go figure.
AN EVENING FOR FREEDOM: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley opened its 49th season Saturday night with “Hold These Truths,” a compelling drama about Gordon Hirabayashi, whose resistance to relocation to the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The Northern California premiere of the show at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto brought out quite a crowd, including playwright Jeanne Sakata, TheatreWorks Managing Director Phil Santora, TheatreWorks founder Robert Kelley and retired Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell. The play runs through Aug. 5. Schedule and ticket information is available at www.theatreworks.org.
SIPS FOR A CAUSE: The ninth annual Sabor del Valle wine-tasting fundraiser will showcase Northern California wines, food, artists and vendors Friday at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose. Organizer Ray Castaneda said this year’s event will include a VIP reception for Gustavo Brambila, the Mexican-born Napa Valley winemaker who joined Chateau Montelena shortly after the famed “Judgement of Paris” in 1976.
Bramblia, who went on to found Gustavo Wine, was one of five immigrant winemakers honored last year by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History at its annual winemakers’ fundraising dinner last year.
The event begins at 6:30 p.m., and the VIP reception starts at 5 p.m. This year’s event supports the East Valley Family YMCA, the Jose Valdes Math Institute and the Rotary Club of San Jose’s RotaCare program. Get ticket information and other details at www.sabordelvalle.org.