The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patterns of stresses arising from various life styles and their related sociodemographic factors in urban residents. The subjects were recruited from the population of two ‘Dong’s (administrative blocks) representative of Daejeon city through stratified cluster random sampling during the period ranging from June I st to Aug. 31 st, 2003. Self-administered questionnaires, including items asking about subjects' sociodemographic characteristics, daily life styles, measurement of stresses by General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg, 1978), were delivered to 396 residents and their responses were analyzed with the following results. 1. Based on the discriminant scores of HPI, 46.7% of the subjects were found to have less than 4 points (poor life style), whereas 53.3% had points higher than 5 (good life style). Higher than 5 points were scored more frequently in females than in the male, in the age group of 40's - 60's than the 30's, in the group with spouse than without, in the group with both spouse and offsprings than without, and in the group owning a house than not. 2. Based on the degree of stress, 17.7% of the subjects were determined to be healthy, 74.5% were potentially under stress, and 7.8% were at higher risk of stress. The proportion of healthy individuals were significantly higher in the male, advanced aged group(40's and 60's), the group with higher education years( over highschool), with higher monthly income over two million Won, and with spouse, than their respective counterparts. On the other hand the proportion of the individuals potentially under stress and at higher risk of stress was significantly higher in the female, in the age group of 30's and over 60's, in the group with academic career lower than middle school, with monthly income lower than two million Won, and without spouse. 3. Based on the relation of HPI with degree of stresses, subjects with HPI scores lower than 4 had increased rate of falling into the groups under potential stress and at higher risk of stress, while on the other hand those with over 5 points were found to be healthy in light of stress. 4. Based on the specific relation of each item of HPI with degree of stress, the proportion of healthy individuals was higher in the groups who take appropriate hours of sleep(7-8hours), who take breakfasts everyday, who take physical exercises everyday, who don't smoke, who don't drink alcohol, who take snacks everyday, who are overweight and obese, whereas the proportion of the group under potential stress and at higher risk of stress was higher in their comparable counterparts. 5. The relation of mean scores of HPI with stress scores in both male and female subjects showed negative correlation that the higher HPI scores, the lower stress scores. 6. Multivariate regression analysis to reveal the factors influencing the stress of the subjects showed that for men the significant factors were age, education, presence of job or not, exercise, subjective health status, with the explanatory power of 26.3%. For women, they included educational years, presence of spouse or not, job, owning a house or not, sleeping hours, drinking habit, taking snacks, subjective health status, with the explanatory power of 31.8%. The above study results suggests that stresses of urban residents have significant correlation with daily life styles and this correlation is also remarkably distinguished by different age and sex.