I moved

The life event I hate most is "moving."

You're dragged into pointless irrational operations over and over, there are too many variables so your own control often isn't enough, you have to do endless trivial exchanges with strangers — it's the most exhausting thing in life.

Despite that hassle, we moved from Tokyo to Osaka.
As I wrote on the blog recently, we got married, and since we hadn't lived together before, Osaka is where we start cohabiting for the first time.

I'm from Osaka (my wife isn't).

University was in Tokyo; from birth through one year of exam prep after high school, I was in Osaka. I'd always wanted to come back someday.

That said, through middle and high school I didn't have many friends and wasn't the go-out type, so I know fewer places to hang out than people from Kanto who visit USJ now and then. And my family isn't especially close, nor do I have a special community here.
I have some affection for Kansai dialect (enough that when I visit and a café clerk speaks Kansai-ben I feel relieved), but Osaka love itself isn't that strong.

More that I was fed up with how many people Tokyo has.
Trains are packed around the clock; weekends are crowded everywhere. Café chains that aren't even that stylish are insanely crowded except early morning. When I try to work at a café, it's packed and after two or three places there's still no calm seat.

Go to Shibuya or Shinjuku and walking one or two hours alone leaves you drained.
Drinking with friends: places that don't even serve especially good food are packed and expensive. (I don't drink much anymore, so I barely go to drinking parties.)

Not only bars — bookstores, gyms, wherever you go, always crowded. Saunas are absurdly packed too; whenever I go, stress increases.

Of course people stay home on beds with SNS and YouTube when going out raises stress. Best cost-performance, obviously. (Like kids banned from ball play in every park, so they game at home. Or maybe not.)

Rent is fatally expensive too.
Trying to live together in a 2LDK: rent is insane. Filter ordinary hopes on SUUMO or Homes and you get two search results — both ridiculous properties. House hunting isn't fun at all.
Your only option becomes living a bit farther out, which means packed trains every day. (I remote-work so it's fine for me, but I feel for my wife — even worse.)
By the way, even vs world megacities, Tokyo real estate value is supposedly still low. What a terrifying world.

In Tokyo I chose areas with wider streets as much as possible, but daily life was so cramped that just living made my head feel like it was going crazy.

At my request, with my wife's help, we managed to move to Osaka.

Her workplace flexibly let her transfer to the Osaka branch or remote — that luck made it possible.

Osaka still feels fresh and great because we just moved — and "Osaka is amazing" is of course my taste — but even subtracting that, Tokyo had too many people and was too cramped.

Looking ahead to raising kids too, I couldn't imagine living calmly in crowded streets and trains.

Tokyo is probably, globally, a place where you can get anything and stay safe.
Osaka may have slightly worse safety in some areas, but basically fine. Variety of shops and economic richness are definitely higher in Tokyo.

But personally, having many options where you can walk into a nearby café off-peak, talk calmly, and get something roughly worth the price — that's very happy.

Tokyo-style places where tables are tight even off-peak and new people keep pouring in never let your mind rest.

And of course it depends on the shop, but land prices in Tokyo are so high that this flow probably has to keep going or the business doesn't work.

Since moving to Osaka, stress has really dropped.
Cohabiting, talking happily with my wife, and getting meals and sleep somewhat in order also play a role — but whether the same setup in Tokyo would feel the same, I honestly doubt.

I'm wearing a sleep ring to measure sleep; since moving, sleep scores are good and my body condition is at its best.

This isn't "Osaka is great!" so much as "Tokyo didn't suit me" — I don't want to trash Tokyo. (Most of my clients are still in Tokyo, and future work opportunities will almost certainly be with Tokyo people.)

From experience: if you live in Tokyo and somehow stay chronically stressed and in bad condition even with sleep and exercise, I recommend leaving Tokyo once. (※ At least in my Tokyo years I exercised and slept daily, health above average, but chronic stress remained.)

If your hometown isn't Tokyo, like me, moving to a practically convenient wide-street area in your home prefecture should recover condition a lot. Even Tokyo residents: among places you've visited, try boldly switching to an area that isn't inconvenient and seems to fit your skin.

I have friends who moved to quite remote countryside; personally as a first step I'd recommend regional cities. Osaka, Fukuoka, Aichi — places where you barely feel inconvenience — seem good.
Okinawa would be nice too.
Personally I'd like to live in Nagano someday. I like Karuizawa, and I've heard Matsumoto is good though I've never been. Okayama (Kurashiki) — a friend lives there and I stayed a few days — was excellent.

If you've recently left Tokyo and your condition or sense of daily life changed, please tell me.