Can chewing gum reduce stress?
Everyone experiences stress at some time or other, in some form or another—it can manifest itself as physiological, neurological, or psychological changes. How we manage stress can vary, too. One way that could potentially reduce stress is chewing gum.
Ausloos et al studied “The Effects of Chewing Gum on Physiological Stress Responses and Cognitive Recall” in their lab at University of Wisconsin - Madison, Department of Physiology. The researchers hypothesized that chewing gum would directly attenuate the elicited physiological stress response and indirectly enhance cognitive performance. They measured baseline data and stress response to audio and verbal stressors by monitoring changes in brain wave activity via electroencephalography (EEG), heart rate (HR) via electrocardiography (ECG), and blood pressure (BP).
Biopac Student Lab System hardware (MP36) and Software (BSL 4) was used to continuously measure heart rate and brain wave activity, with exact measurements being recorded at specific time points. A fully-shielded cable lead for high resolution recording of biopotentials was used along with disposable surface electrodes to measure ECG beats per minute (BPM) and EEG.
Participants were divided into two groups. Each group completed a word search task followed by a recall task, but the time at which each group received a piece of gum within the study was different: Group A received gum after the stress induced task and Group B received the gum before the stress induced task.
Contrary to the hypothesis and prior study results, results of this study concluded that chewing gum had no significant effect on the three physiological measurements upon exposure to the stressor, and did not indirectly enhance cognitive recall performance. In this study, the only significant result between groups was increased systolic BP during the recall task. No significant findings were identified for brain wave activity or HR, and chewing gum led to a marginally statistically insignificant increase in BP.
Future studies might increase the number of participants or change equipment to validate the different results of this study on chewing gum and stress.
