Reduce Your Stress Levels With Chewing Gum

Is relieving stress a simple matter of chewing more gum? A new study reveals that chewing gum has been found to reduce stress and anxiety in people who chew it. The study may be of particular interest for who follow developments in treatment for depression and anxiety.

People have been searching for ways to fight stress for years. Most commonly, the ways we use to do this primarily include cigarette smoking and chewing gum. But, until recently, there was never any research studies to back up the thought that chewing gum might actually result in reduced stress levels – until now.

As well alleviating tenseness and anxiousness, researchers found that people who chew gum also showed an improvement in alertness and in their ability to multitask.

This most recent research study was highlighted last year in Tokyo, by behavioral scientist Andrew Scholey, where he spoke at the tenth International Congress of Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Scholey, who is a PH.D., is a professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia where the research study was done, studied this with the aid of some researchers from the Wrigley Science Institute. The purpose of the study was intended to determine if and how the act of chewing gum affected mood, cortisol levels, and stress.

Cortisol is a hormone that is put out by the adrenal gland in the body. When we are stressed out, the levels of cortisol lin the body begins to spike as the body enters into its – fight or flight – mode. Normally, the body is in a relaxed state, and the cortisol levels in the body are depressed, or normal. Researchers can measure cortisol levels in the body which makes it perfect as a marker to use in determining just how much stress a person is experiencing. Dr. Scholey’s research showed that when a person chews gum, at least in the laboratory setting, his levels of cortisol went down.

The study involved only forty people, a relatively small number of participants from which to extrapolate results to the general population. The average age was 22 years old. The testing was done using the Defined Intensity Stressor Simulation (a.k.a. DISS) which, among other things, is a standardized methodology of measuring stress-related physiological responses in a laboratory setting. In the study, the cortisol levels, plus the degree of alertness, were measured before the participants begin to chew gum and again as they were chewing the gum.

Based on the results of the study, chewing gum had a definite affect on the stress levels of the participants involved – but how much? The tests showed that those who chewed gum reduced their levels of anxiety by almost 17 percent when under mild stress and by almost 10 percent when under moderate stress.

And what about the differences in levels of performance? It was even greater. Those who chewed gum performed from 66% to 108% better than those who didn’t.

In the past, there have been many studies on the influence of scents on anxiety and stress. This research study, however, did not focus on the type of gum chewed, therefore it’s not known whether flavor of the chewing gum made a difference in the results.

So what can we derive from this particular research study? We can pretty much predict what the chewing gum manufacturers will derive from it. They will, no doubt, be using the science to convince people to chew more of their gum. From a consumer standpoint, however, we’ll have to wait for follow up testing to determine if we all should add chewing gum to our weekly shopping lists.

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