A new study has suggested that spending time with someone who is stressed can raise your own stress levels.
In a study called ‘Social transmission and buffering of synaptic changes after stress’, researchers took pairs of mice and exposed one of each couple to mild stress, before reuniting them with their partner.
The findings? “That authentic stress and transmitted stress in mice primed paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons [a group of neurons that can be activated by physiological changes including stress], enabling the induction of metaplasticity at glutamate synapses.”
Or in other words, stress was transferred from one participant to the other as their brains changed in the same way.
“The neurons that control the brain's response to stress showed changes in unstressed partners that were identical to those we measured in the stressed mice,” said the study’s lead author, Toni-Lee Sterley.
While the study doesn’t offer any solutions on how to deal with a stressed out partner, Health and Community Psychologist Dr Marny Lishman offered some advice to Body+Soul: “If someone is stressed out and psychologically suffering in some way, the closest people in their lives tend to suffer along with them.”
“[It’s best to] set boundaries about how much time you spend with that person.
“That way you can have a healthy empathy for them, without taking it on yourself.”
