Your stress is also my stress

But observing stressful situations can trigger a physical stress response

Stress is contagious. It may be sufficient to observe another person in a stressful situation, so that the own body releases the stress hormone cortisol. These are the findings by scientists in a large-scale cooperation project between the Departments of Tania Singer at the Leipzig Max Planck Institute fürKognitions- and neuroscience and Clemens Kirschbaum from the Technical University of Dresden. Empathic stress occurred most frequently when observers were in an intimate relationship to the stressed person and could follow the action directly on a glass pane. But even if strangers were only seen on a screen, which some people replied on alert. In our embossed stress society this empathic mediated stress is a non-negligible factor for healthcare.

Stress is one of the major disease-causing nowadays. It causes various psychological problems like burnout, depression or anxiety. Even those who lead a relatively relaxed life, constantly comes with stressed people in touch. Whether at work or on television: Somebody always just stress, and this can rub off on the environment. Not only felt but also physically measurable as increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

"The fact that we could actually measure this empathic stress in the form of a significant release of hormones, was amazing," says Veronika Engert, one of the first authors of the study. Especially when you consider that it is not possible in many studies to activate the stress system by directly experienced stress. Empathic stress responses could be independent ( "deputy stress") or proportional ( "stress contagion") to the stress reactions of active stressed subjects. "There seems to be a way of transmission, from the perception of other a stress response triggers with us dependent."

During the stress test, the subjects had to contend with difficult mental arithmetic tasks and interviews, while two alleged behavior analysts rated their performance. Only five percent of direct stressed subjects could not bring calm to all the other showed a physiologically significant increase in the cortisol levels.

Overall showed 26 percent observers who were themselves subjected to any stress, a physiologically important increase of cortisol. The effect was particularly strong when observers and stressed person cohabiting union (40 percent), but even with complete strangers stress jumped nevertheless still at ten percent of the observers. Emotional Bonding is therefore not a prerequisite for empathic stress.

Could the observer to follow the events directly, responded 30 percent stressed. But even if the stress test only flickered on the screen, enough that the cortisol levels to drive at 24 percent of observers in the level. "This means that even television shows that confront me with the suffering of others, to transfer the stress to me," says Engert. "Stress has enormous potential contagion."

One problem is stress especially if it is chronic. "A hormonal stress response has evolutionary course makes sense. If they are exposed to danger, they also want their body reacts with an increase of the stress hormone, "says Engert. "But constantly elevated cortisol levels are not good. suffer in the long run including eg the immune system and the nerve cells. "Of potentially harmful consequences empathic stress are therefore particularly affected people in helping professions or members dauergestresster people. Who ever directly with the suffering and stress the other is confronted, which also has to suffer an increased risk even lower.

With another prejudice the results clear, however: Men and women responded equally often with empathy stress. "In questionnaires appreciate women as empathetic a, than men do. So far, the still was in any experiment, used the objective biological markers can be detected. "Future studies should show exactly how the stress is transmitted and what can be done to reduce the negative impact of stress on society.

Original publication:

Engert, V., Plessow, F., Miller, R., Kirschbaum, C., & Singer, T. Cortisol increase in empathic stress is modulated by social closeness and observation modality. Psychoneuroendocrinology, April 17, 2014

Source: Leipzig [Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences]