Chew gum to chill out
Thu, September 18 2008
Andrew Scholey, professor of behavioural and brain sciences at Swinburne University in Melbourne, and his team, found chewing gum was associated with higher alertness, reduced anxiety and stress, and improvement in overall performance on multi-tasking activities.
Competing in the saturated U.S. and European markets has thrust chewing gum makers into intensive research and development efforts to create innovative market-grabbing products. In recent years the sugar-free gum trend has rescued flat sales for the gum industry.
This latest study from Australia, carried out in conjunction with Wrigley, could be a further weapon in the confectioners’ armoury.
Presented last weekend at Rissho University in Tokyo, Japan at the 10th International Congress of Behavioural Medicine, the 40-person study investigated how chewing gum affected the score of participants – average age of 22 – on the Defined Intensity Stressor Simulation (DISS).
The DISS is a multi-tasking platform which, according to the researchers, “reliably induces stress and also includes performance measures, while chewing and not chewing gum.”
Anxiety, alertness and stress levels were measured before and after participants completed the DISS.
The scientists found that when chewing gum, participants reported lower levels of anxiety.
“Gum chewers showed a reduction in anxiety as compared to non-gum chewers by nearly 17 per cent during mild stress and nearly 10 per cent in moderate stress,” they write.
Gum chewing also appeared to raise alertness in participants.
“Gum chewers showed improvement in alertness over non-gum chewers by nearly 19 per cent during mild stress and 8 per cent in moderate stress,” said the researchers.
Levels of salivary cortisol (a physiological stress marker) in gum chewers were lower than those of non-gum chewers by 16 per cent during mild stress and nearly 12 per cent in moderate stress.
According to the researchers’ findings, chewing gum resulted in a “significant improvement in overall performance on multi-tasking activities.”
