MONITORING CORTISOL LEVEL CHANGES IN RESPONSE TO DAILY LIFE STRESSORS
N.C. Nicolson and M.M.M. van Eck
Department of Psychiatry, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands
While earlier research in the field of stress focused on the impact of
major life events or acute experimental stress, little is known about
the nature of and the psychological and physiological responses to
minor but much more frequenty ocurring stresses of daily living. To
increase our understanding of the stress process as it relates to
health, the present research investigated the impact of minor daily
events on mood and the HPA system. The aims of the research were:
- to describe the nature and scope of daily life stress in a group of white collar men to contrast the experiences of individuals who perceive themselves to be stressed with those who do not,
- to investigate affective and neuroendocrine (cortisol) responses in relation in stressful daily events, and
- to investigate whether the cortisol responses to a laboratory stress task are generalizable to those occuring during stressful situations in real life.
Two groups of white collar men, with high versus low levels of
perceived stress, were recruited as subjects. The Experience Sampling
Method (cf. Delespaul & de Vries, this volume)
was used to collect data on stressful events and mood from subjects
during their normal daily activities. Ten times a day for five
consecutive days, subjects received auditory signals, after which they
filled in a questionnaire and collected a saliva sample for cortisol
determination. The same subjects also participated in a laboratory
stress task. The results indicate that the even minor everyday events
and fluctuations in mood states have an impact on cortisol secretion,
which may point to a possible mechanism linking subjective experience
to health outcomes.
Reference
Eck, M.M.M. van (1996). Stress, Mood and Cortisol Dynamics in Daily Life. IPSER Series on Ecological Psychiatry, Vol. 3. Maastricht.
This poster was presented by P.A.E.G. Delespaul
Poster presented at Measuring Behavior '96, International Workshop on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 16-18 October 1996, Utrecht, The Netherlands