Do you sit next to a whingeing workmate who constantly moans about fellow colleagues, workload or politics?
Do you listen patiently while she worries about bosses, boyfriends or boring bank issues?
If you do, you could be suffering more than just a bent ear, as a new study reveals we can actually “catch” other people's stress.
Professor Elaine Hatfield, a psychologist from the University of Hawaii, discovered that stress can be as contagious as a cold, and that “passive” or second-hand stress and anxiety can quickly spread around the workplace.
“People seem to be capable of mimicking others' facial, vocal, and postural expressions with stunning rapidity,” Hatfield said.
“As a consequence, they are able to feel themselves into those other emotional lives to a surprising extent.”
Hatfield's study found that we are effectively sponges, soaking up so-called emotional contagions emitted by those around us.
As we absorb other people's stress, we can begin to feel stressed too - and to focus on issues that might be troubling us.
In part, we take on our friend or colleague's stress in an attempt to identify with them, but also because the constant stream of discontent poured into our ears acts as a depressant, turning our minds to negative thoughts.
And Professor Hatfield found that not only do we take on other people's negative thought patterns, we can also start to subconsciously take on their stressed out body language, causing us to hunch our shoulders and furrow our brows when we talk to them.
“In conversation, people automatically and continuously mimic and synchronise their movements with the facial expressions, voices, postures, movements, and instrumental behaviors of others,” Professor Hatfield says.
In doing so, people can and do “feel themselves into” the emotional landscapes” others are suffering.
So while men and tougher types might be resistant to workplace stress, more it is notably women who suffer.
“Some people are oblivious and therefore immune to the stress around them,” she said.
“Women are more at risk because they tend to be more in tune to other people's feelings,” Hatfield adds.
“We pass emotions back and forth all the time, as part of every interaction we have with another person,” agrees Daniel Goleman, author of Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence.
“It’s usually subtle, but sometimes all too obvious.”
With stress a bigger issue than ever in the workplace - the UK's Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development recently dubbed it “the Black Death of the 21st Century” - there is a very real risk of “second-hand” or “passive” stress becoming a potential danger to Britain's workers.
Something to think about before joining in with the next water-cooler whinge-fest. - Daily Mail