In-depth nationwide research* from Nurofen has identified the UK’s summer pain hot-spots, with London being the city that locals themselves rate as one of the top ten biggest pains in the country.
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Nurofen asked people from London to grade their area on common summer headache-inducing issues such as hot and overcrowded public transport, too many tourists and noise late into the night.
London scored highly on the pain-o-meter** with a score of 42/100, versus Newcastle, the country’s most pain-free city, which totalled just 33/100. Coming close behind are the other Northern cities of Sheffield and Edinburgh.
The top five summer seasonal concerns London locals wish they could target are:
” Sleepless nights due to heat (53% of people)
” Hot, overcrowded public transport (76%)
” A lack of air conditioning in indoor public spaces (69% of people)
” Noisy kids everywhere (56%)
” Large crowds at festivals and other outdoor events (48%)
Psychologist Linda Papadopoulos says, “The north-south divide gauntlet has been thrown down once again! It’s interesting that some of the most popular seaside destinations, like Bournemouth and Newquay have actually been revealed as pain hot spots. These concerns, as identified by London residents, can cause so much stress as they can lead to physical symptoms – feeling overheated can lead to headaches and sitting in traffic for hours can cause backache. Perhaps the London residents from Nurofen’s study associate the summer holidays with these physical side effects which greatly affects their enjoyment of what is otherwise one of the most popular seasons.”
Almost a year into the credit crunch and Brits are still considering ‘stay-cations’ instead of holidaying abroad. Just over half (62%) of Londoners are planning on staying on home turf this year – a 9% increase from 2008 – and, in fact, 51% of Londoners are planning to visit a British public event over July and August, although it seems we still have our doubts about how enjoyable they’ll be!
Over half (57%) of Londoners are not looking forward to the now-typical extreme weather, with blazing sun potentially causing dehydration and almost a quarter (28%) are dreading the headaches they’ll inevitably get from excessive noise.
” Notting Hill Carnival, London (with 73% of residents agreeing)
” Camp Bestival, Dorset (65%)
” Edinburgh Festival, Scotland (55%)
” Cowes Week, Isle of White (47%)
” The Ashes, London (43%)
With this in mind, Nurofen are sending out Pain Hot-Spot Hit-Squads to deliver cooling water and ear plugs to target the source of the pain for visitors at these popular events.
Camp Bestival, 26th July
Cowes Week, 01st August
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 08th August
The Ashes, 22nd August
Notting Hill Carnival, 31st August
* Research carried out by Redshift Research between 03/07/09 and 06/07/09 with a sample of 2,074 men and women, aged between 18-55+ years old, across 20 major cities.
** 100 residents in each city were asked to rate 10 ‘summer pains’ out of a score of 10. Those scores were then added up to calculate which city was deemed ‘best’ (lowest score out of 100) and ‘worst’ (highest score out of 100) according to the criteria given.
