Researchers: Stress can be contagious

[Merrimack]

Stress can be contagious, researchers find - The Nation

Leipzig, Germany - Stress, like yawning, can be contagious, researchers in Germany have found. They said that simply observing someone in a stressful situation often causes a person's body to release the stress hormone cortisol, a phenomenon they term "empathetic stress."

The team of researchers, led by Tania Singer, director of the Department of Social Neuroscience at the Leipzig-based Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS), and Clemens Kirschbaum, a professor of biopsychology at the Dresden University of Technology, subjected 151 people to stressors such as complex mental arithmetic and job interviews.

The test persons were variously paired with 211 observers - either a loved one or a stranger of the opposite sex - who watched them in "real life" through a one-way mirror or via a live video transmission. Overall, 26 per cent of the observers displayed "significant cortisol increases," the researchers said.

The figure was 40 per cent when the test person was a loved one compared with 10 per cent for strangers, and 30 per cent during a real-life observation compared with 24 per cent for a virtual one.

"This means even television programmes that confront me with other people’s suffering can transmit their stress to me," said Veronika Engert, a research assistant at MPI CBS.

The study was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

DPA

[Merrimack]

It makes sense. Positive energy creates positive energy. Get happy and avoid negative folks.

[Latindancer]

And put kingwilly on "Ignore" !

[Ratchaburi]

And put kingwilly on "Ignore" !

Or not
I see if you dont read things, you dont what to read ( don't read it) LD grow some ball mate.

If I yawn in front of you, you will yawn. YES

[nidhogg]

I would like to see that study repeated in Thailand, the "mai pen rai" capital of the world.

[Rural Surin]

It makes sense. Positive energy creates positive energy. Get happy and avoid negative folks.

Yet, wouldn't it depend on what ones views as negative?

[Perota]

It makes sense. Positive energy creates positive energy. Get happy and avoid negative folks.

Yet, wouldn't it depend on what ones views as negative?

Simple. When one gets a problem, a positive person will look for a solution. A negative person looks for someone to blame.

A negative person needs problems, they justify his view of the world. He is ready to go as far as to create them if he can't find any around him.

Unfortunately I have a couple of negative persons around me. As I need to keep record of my blood pressure, I can "scientifically" measure the effect they have on the people around them. I can confirm, negative people are bad for your health.