It’s well known that interruptions at work are prone to stress us out.  What is perhaps less well known is that the cortisol that is a byproduct of this stress is visible in our spit, which researchers at ETH Zurich believe could provide an early warning sign that we’re struggling with stress at work.

The research is interesting because the authors found that we don’t tend to perceive stress in the same way, which can result in it creeping up on many of us.

Volunteers were split into three groups, each of which depicted an office environment, resplendent with a chair, computer, and kits for collecting saliva samples.  The volunteers were tasked with playing the part of employees at an insurance company, and were required to perform various typical office tasks.  The researchers were monitoring their psychobiological responses as they did so.

Stressed out

At half a dozen points throughout the experiment, each of the volunteers was asked to rate their mood via a questionnaire.  A portable ECG device was also measuring their heartbeat throughout, and the researchers collected regular saliva samples to measure the concentration of cortisol.

Each of the three groups was exposed to a different level of stress alongside identical workloads.  The stress condition consisted of the arrival of two actors masquerading as representatives of the HR department at the insurance company.  For those in the control group, this company rep simply performed a sales pitch, but for those in the two stress groups, the HR manager was looking for candidates to promote.

The two stress conditions were differentiated by one group only being interrupted to have their saliva samples taken, whereas the second group were interrupted by constant messages from their boss demanding urgent information.

The results revealed that simply involving people in the promotion criteria was sufficient to raise their heart rate and trigger the stress hormone, cortisol.  Interestingly though, those who also received constant interruptions from their boss released twice as much cortisol as their peers who were not interrupted.

“Most research into workplace interruptions carried out to date focused only on their effect on performance and productivity,” the researchers say. “Our study shows for the first time that they also affect the level of cortisol a person releases, in other words they actually influence a person’s biological stress response.”

While that is perhaps to be expected, what was interesting is that those in the group where interruptions were introduced actually reported feeling less stressed than their uninterrupted peers.  They also reported feeling in a better mood, despite both groups saying that the situation was challenging.

The researchers believe that the cortisol triggered by the extra interruptions helped to mobilize more of the physical responses in our “fight and flight” mechanism, which led to a better emotional and cognitive response to the stress they encountered.  It’s also possible that the interruptions managed to distract people from the stressful situation, which in turn made it feel less threatening.

Given the highly distracting nature of the modern workplace, however, the findings are certainly worth noting.