Chewing gum, stress and health

Abstract

Hollingworth described chewing gum as ‘a technique of relaxation’. Recent research has examined this issue and there is evidence that chewing gum can prevent the adverse effects of acute stress. There are also plausible biological mechanisms that could explain such effects. It is now important to examine chewing gum and chronic stress and the present study involved a survey of this topic. The survey covered the ‘stress process’, collecting data on exposure to stressful events, levels of perceived stress and health outcomes. Frequency of chewing gum was also recorded. Potential confounding factors (demographics, personality and health‐related behaviours) were also recorded. The web‐based survey was completed by a community sample of 2,248 full‐time workers (68% female. Mean age: 35 years, range 18–74 years). Sixty‐one per cent of the sample were gum chewers. The results showed that chewing gum was associated with lower levels of perceived stress (both at work and life in general). Gum chewers were also less likely to be depressed and to have seen their doctor for high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Chewing gum was associated with lower levels of alcohol consumption and with cigarette smoking. Gum chewers were also more likely to be neurotic extraverts. Those who chewed gum were also more likely to be exposed to negative factors at work. Logistic regression analyses showed that the effects of chewing gum on stress and health remained significant when these confounding factors were controlled for. These results suggest that chewing gum may be a simple way of preventing stress and the negative health outcomes that are often associated with it. Intervention studies are now required and the mechanisms underlying the effects reported here need further investigation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Chewing gum moderates multi-task induced shifts in stress, mood, and alertness. A re-examination

“…Furthermore, Smith's (2009c) survey data corroborate the self-rated data of Scholey et al, such that gum chewers (compared to non-chewers) reported significantly lower levels of extreme work stress, life stress, lifetime instances of high blood pressure, and lifetime incidences of high cholesterol.…”

“…Notwithstanding this analysis, sessions were longer in the Scholey et al study indicating that the effects of gum on stress may be limited to more prolonged instances of stress (e.g. see the survey examination of chronic stress by Smith, 2009c). Furthermore, some evidence of asymmetric transfer was found for contentedness and alertness.…”

Personality, individual differences, stress and health

“…All of these reports include personality and individual difference variables as important components in the prediction and understanding of stress-and health-related outcomes and behaviour. The research reported here adopts diverse personality traits and trait-like constructs ranging from constructs from the fi vefactor model (Smith, 2009) to dispositional coping strategies (Chen, Siu, Cooper, & Phillips, 2009;Karademas, Karamvakalis, & Zarogiannos, 2009;Kozora, Ellison, & West, 2009). Many have included individual differences in demographic characteristics as important moderating factors or covariates (Galanakis, Stalikas, Kallia, Karagianni, & Karela, 2009;Karademas et al, 2009;Smith, 2009;Su, Weng, Tsang, & Wu, 2009).…”

“…The research reported here adopts diverse personality traits and trait-like constructs ranging from constructs from the fi vefactor model (Smith, 2009) to dispositional coping strategies (Chen, Siu, Cooper, & Phillips, 2009;Karademas, Karamvakalis, & Zarogiannos, 2009;Kozora, Ellison, & West, 2009). Many have included individual differences in demographic characteristics as important moderating factors or covariates (Galanakis, Stalikas, Kallia, Karagianni, & Karela, 2009;Karademas et al, 2009;Smith, 2009;Su, Weng, Tsang, & Wu, 2009). There are also diverse and innovative methodological treatment of these variables including interactions between traits/individual differences and environmental/situational factors (Galanakis et al, 2009;Kunst, Bogaerts, & Winkel, 2009;Vaske, Beaver, Wright, Boisvert, & Makarios, 2009) and mediation effects (Karademas et al, 2009).…”

“…The present set of studies are exemplary as they not only account for the potentially confounding effects of these individual difference factors (Chen et al, 2009;Karademas et al, 2009;Kozora et al, 2009;Kunst et al, 2009;Smith, 2009), but also adopt such variables as important factors that determine outcomes. Examples of such research include fi nding an effect of gender on stress mediated by other sociodemographic variables like age and marital status (Galanakis et al, 2009), and identifying similar psychological stress levels in male and female physicians and hospital staff members, which is in contrast with previous fi ndings (Su et al, 2009).…”