According To Research, Stress Turns Out To Be Infectious

Stress illustration can be transmitted according to research (Freepic)

YOGYAKARTA Even if you don't do anything, when you observe someone who is stressed, sometimes you stress yourself see it. For example, when you see someone doing presentations and anxiety. You may feel the anxiety too, the palms of your hands sweat, and your heart beats faster.

Research conducted by the Center for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior at the University of Konstaz, Germany. This study explores and observes stress affecting those around you and causes higher cortisol. Launching Psychology Today, Wednesday, May 8, stress transmission can have an impact on the physitology, behavior, and stress levels of those around you. This can happen through social and biological mechanisms such as mediation, social signs, and emotional expressions.

Stress transmission often occurs in the workplace. When stress on a person is transmitted to others. This can have a serious impact on the productivity and welfare of employees.

Stress transmission is measured in various ways. Including physiological measurements, such as stress hormones or heart rate, behavioral observations, self-report measurements, and neuroimaging. One of the things that makes measurements is complex, because there is no standard model that induces stress transmission. So the team from Konstaz University created standards for measuring stress transmission.

Participants who take part in the study observe what triggers stress. The task that triggers includes mock work interviews recorded with audia and video followed by mental arithmetic tasks. During the observation, research participants were asked to write down their own feelings, thoughts, and physical experiences.

Control groups have similar settings. They are asked to observe someone reading a five-minute story out loud, and adding up mental arithmetic tasks.

The observer's heart rate and saliva samples are collected at various points of time to collect physiological data. Results from physiological data report that research participants observing stress scenarios show higher cortisol, higher heart rate, and higher saliva alpha-amilase, as well as measured activity of sympathetic and hypotalamus-hypophisisis-adrenal nervous systems. The activity of stress observers reflects actively engaging in stress-intensive activity.

Referring to this study, researchers recommend how to manage stress and stress transmission in the workplace. Apart from research results, it also refers to reports that 80 percent of workers in America suffer from work-related stress. That is, it is important to have stress management skills. There are so many stress management techniques, including cognitive stress management. It is also important to empower employees to cope with stress better and prevent stress transmission in the workplace.