There are times when you feel completely drained, as if all the energy has been sucked out of your body, after clashing with your boss at work or fighting through a packed subway to get home. This phenomenon has long been dismissed as a simple mental fatigue or mood issue. However, it has been scientifically proven that it's actually the result of our noses collecting stress signals from bodies of people around us, triggering an alarm inside our own bodies.
According to the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) on the 8th, a research team led by Dr. Elisa Vigna at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden showed findings that microscopic chemical signals in human sweat can be transmitted to other people's brains and immune systems in real-time. After analyzing sweat samples collected from subjects watching horror movies or experiencing intense pressure, the team confirmed that sweat produced due to stress has a completely different chemical composition from sweat produced after ordinary exercise.
The chemical signals in 'sweat stress' may not be consciously detected by the sense of smell, but they are delivered directly to the amygdala, which is the emotional control center of the brain, via the vomeronasal organ inside the nose. Experiments showed that people exposed to the scent of 'sweat stress' immediately showed activation in the anxiety-related region of brain. They also unconsciously display physiological synchronization, including increased blood cortisol levels (a hormone that raises blood pressure and blood sugar to help the body fight stress.)
These findings support the theory of human chemical communications that was proposed by Professor Bettina Pause of the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, suggesting that humans, just like animals, share threat signals through scent.
A particularly notable point of this study is that such emotional contagion goes beyond simple mood changes and actually weakens the immune system. When the body detects another person's stress signals, it views them as an external threat and enters a defensive state. During this process, the activity of NK (Natural Killer) cells, which attack cancer cells and viruses, was found to decrease significantly. Therefore, spending a long time in enclosed spaces with highly stressed coworkers can be an act of impairing your own biological defenses, much like secondhand smoking.
Experts emphasize that to protect yourself from this kind of chemical contagion, you should pay as much attention to 'emotional hygiene' as you do to physical hygiene. Regular ventilation doesn't just clean the air, but it is also a practical preventive measure that washes away the stress-related chemical signals in the space. Furthermore, since stress transmission travels directly through the connection between the sense of smell and the brain, aromatherapy or taking short walks to change the air can be effective to protect your immunity.
1. [+196][-6] There really are people who sigh and get irritated over nothing. Just being near them makes me feel like crap too.
2. [+189][-16] I think people who drains other people's energy really do exist~ When I visit a nursing home, I feel like all my energy is sucked out, but when I watch kids playing at a playground or dogs running around, I feel like it boosts my energy~ Whether it's just my mood or something else, there's definitely something to it!!
3. [+169][-4] The person who cause the harm is usually the only one who doesn't realize it.
4. [+33][-1] When you work with a negative person, you feel more drained even if the work is going well! They just suck your energy dry.
5. [+30][-2] I fired a part-timer who would be on their phone laughing when the business is slow and would sigh nonstop when customers poured in. The store's atmosphere became instantly fresh again!
