Stress levels are rising: is your workplace part of the problem?

Here's something most leaders don't track: 39% of adults worldwide said they worried for much of the previous day in 2024. Another 37% felt stressed. That's according to Gallup's first-ever State of the World's Emotional Health report, which surveyed 145,000 people across 144 countries.

These aren't just feelings people shake off at the end of the day. They're warning signals with real consequences for health, stability and yes — productivity at work.

The data point everyone missed

Compared to a decade ago, hundreds of millions more people now experience worry, stress, sadness and anger daily. Physical pain jumped two points in 2024, matching its previous high.

But here's what makes this more than just another doom-and-gloom stat: The global rise in unhappiness has been well-documented, yet many leaders have overlooked it because they rely on economic indicators while ignoring daily emotional health.

Translation? Your company might be hitting revenue targets while your team is quietly drowning.

Women carry a heavier load

For nearly two decades, more women than men have reported experiencing daily anger, sadness, worry and stress, as well as more physical pain. The gender gap only widened during the pandemic, particularly for sadness, worry and pain.

Let that sink in. This isn't a recent blip. It's a sustained pattern that organizations have largely ignored.

In 2024, 24% of women and 22% of men reported life-limiting health problems — the smallest gap in five years, but still a gap. Women aren't just feeling more stressed. They're dealing with health issues that directly affect their ability to perform at their best.

Younger adults (aged 15 to 49) are more likely than older adults to report feeling daily anger. Stress peaks in midlife: Adults aged 30 to 49 reported the most stress and feel the least well-rested. That's your core workforce.

What peace has to do with productivity

The Gallup study didn't just measure feelings, they paired their emotion data with peace indexes. The Global Peace Index (which tracks violence and conflict) and the Positive Peace Index (which measures the institutions and structures that sustain stability over time).

The findings show that anger and sadness are strongly tied to weaker scores on both indexes. Negative emotions like anger, sadness and physical pain remain strongly connected to fragile peace even after controlling for GDP.

Why does this matter for business? Prolonged stress contributes to chronic disease and shorter life expectancy. Daily emotions may serve as warning signals for leaders because how people feel each day has real consequences for health and how they show up for work.

Your employees aren't leaving their worry at the door. They're bringing it to every meeting, every deadline, every decision.

The unexpected good news

Daily positive experiences have proven more resilient than negative ones. In 2024, 88% of adults worldwide said they were treated with respect the previous day — up three points from 2023 and among the highest levels Gallup has ever recorded.

Smiling or laughing (73%) and enjoyment (73%) held steady at long-term averages.

There's a psychological reason for this. Positive emotions broaden awareness and help people build lasting resources, such as coping strategies, relationships and resilience. These deeper foundations make positive experiences harder to shake, even in crisis, while negative emotions react more sharply to instability.

This is the leverage point leaders often miss. You can't eliminate stress entirely. But you can build the conditions for resilience.

What workplaces get wrong

Most employee well-being programs treat stress as an individual problem requiring individual solutions. Meditation apps. Gym memberships. Mental health days.

These aren't bad. But they're incomplete.

When Gallup examined positive emotions, they found something surprising: enjoyment and respect were less common in less peaceful countries, but once you account for wealth, that connection disappeared. Meanwhile, negative emotions stayed strongly connected to fragile peace regardless of wealth. Peace reduces distress, but it doesn't create happiness beyond what money already provides.

How can this be applied to the workplace? Removing stressors matters more than adding perks. And for women especially, who report consistently higher worry and stress, this means addressing the structural sources of their daily distress.

The real support looks different

Consider what actually causes worry. When negative feelings become chronic, they narrow people's focus and erode their coping capacity, leaving individuals and societies more vulnerable to instability.

For working women, chronic worry often stems from coordination demands: scheduling doctor appointments, managing family logistics, remembering pet medications, coordinating childcare pickups. Tasks that individually seem small but collectively create a constant cognitive load.

Programs that directly alleviate this burden — not just by teaching stress management, but by removing the source of stress itself — represent a different kind of workplace support. Think coordinated work-life balance programs that handle the actual logistics, not just offer flexibility to manage them yourself.

Circles, for example, takes tasks entirely off employees' plates. Not "here's time to handle it" — but "it's handled." That's the difference between acknowledging stress and actually reducing it.

What leaders should track

Gallup's findings suggest three needs for policymakers:

• Track emotions as leading indicators (widespread anger and sadness may signal fragile peace and growing health risks)
• Integrate peace and health strategies (strengthening governance and investing in health systems must go hand in hand)
• Recognize emotions as infrastructure — not abstract feelings but real-time indicators of social health.

Now replace "policymakers" with "business leaders";  the framework still holds.

Your employee engagement surveys probably ask about satisfaction and connection. Start asking about daily emotions. How many of your team members felt worried yesterday? Stressed? How many felt respected?

Peace, health and emotional well-being rise and fall together. Leaders who ignore emotions risk missing the foundation of stability itself.

The bottom line

The world isn't just going through a rough patch. All negative emotions are down from their pandemic highs, but each is still much higher than a decade ago, showing how the world remains on an emotional edge.

Your workplace exists within this context. You can't fix global fragility. But you can stop contributing to it.

When women say they're worried more than men — consistently, globally, for two decades — and your response is another lunch-and-learn on resilience, you're not solving the problem.

The companies that will retain talent, reduce burnout and actually move the needle on well-being aren't the ones with the best benefits brochure. They're the ones that look at what's actually stealing their employees' peace — and systematically remove it.

Start there.