Your Stress ‘Stresses’ Other People Too, Study Finds

Sharon Moore May 07, 2014

If you can’t stop stressing yourself out for your own sake, then do it for others. Because according to a new study, when you’re stressed, it can actually "rub off" on people around you.

Researchers from Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Technische Universität Dresden found that for some people, watching someone else go through a stressful moment can lead to an increase in their own stress hormone levels.

The study involved partners that were made up of either strangers of the opposite sex, or loved ones. Researchers had one person in the pair watch the other through a one-way mirror, or through a live video feed, as he or she had to complete arithmetic or mental tasks and interviews with supposed behavioural analysts looking on (so as to induce stress). Most of the people who were put up to the stressful task had increases in their levels of the stress hormone cortisol (only 5 per cent of the participants didn’t experience a cortisol increase).

26 per cent of the observers also experienced increases in cortisol levels, even though they were not directly exposed to stress. The percentage was even higher for observers who were watching loved ones go through the stressful tasks, in which 40 per cent experienced increased cortisol levels. Among those who watched a stranger, there was 10 per cent increase in stress levels.

Even though the percentage of people experiencing increased cortisol from watching their partner go through the stressful task was higher when watched in real life through the one-way mirror -- 30 per cent -- the cortisol levels were still raised in 24 per cent of observers when they watched through the video feed. This finding suggests that things like watching stressful moments on TV might be enough to raise cortisol levels, researchers said.

Their findings were published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

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Yes, Your Stress Really Is Rubbing Off On Everyone Around You