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By Carrie Wingate
NEW YORK, Mar 26 (Reuters Health) - It may not be news that having a friend with you in a stressful situation helps reduce anxiety, but a new study reports that a friend's supportive presence may work with anti-stress hormones in the body to keep us cool under pressure.
Researchers at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, led by Dr. Markus Heinrichs, studied response to stress in 40 healthy adult males by having them give an unprepared speech and do mental arithmetic in front of an audience--two standard tests of situational stress. Participants performed with or without their best friend present during the 10-minute preparation period, and with or without a nasal dose of the hormone oxytocin, which scientists think may be involved in regulating people's responses to stress.
"Oxytocin is a hormone well known for its role in facilitating the milk ejection reflex during lactation (breast-feeding) and in stimulating uterine contractions during parturition (childbirth)," Heinrichs explained. He noted that in recent studies with animals, the hormone also seemed to protect against stress and encourage social attachment to others.
Both having a best friend present and getting a dose of oxytocin helped the men reduce stress. Levels of stress were measured by checking the amount of the stress hormone cortisol in the men's saliva. The men also completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires about calmness and anxiety. The findings were presented in March at the American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting in Monterey, California.
The biggest stress buster, the researchers found, was the combination of a dose of oxytocin and a best friend. Men with both had significantly lower anxiety scores, higher calmness scores and lower cortisol levels than did those in other situations. The second-best technique was having the best friend present, but no oxytocin. Administering the hormone without providing social support was the least effective in reducing anxiety.
So how does a hormone that helps women give birth and breast-feed their babies ease men's anxiety during stressful experiences? According to Heinrichs, in both cases oxytocin is helping to keep the individual calm, and its effects are stronger when there's another person present.
In the case of nursing babies, Heinrichs told Reuters Health, "suckling stimulus from the baby leads to a simultaneous release of oxytocin into the bloodstream and within the brain. This reduces the mother's cortisol stress response, which appears to have several protective functions." These include helping the mother focus on the baby without distractions, strengthening her immune system, encouraging milk production and protecting the baby from high levels of cortisol in milk.
"The interesting thing is that we found the same suppressed hormone and behavioral stress responses in men when they had oxytocin nasal spray and, instead of the close presence of the baby, social support from their best friend," Heinrichs pointed out. "Therefore, we conclude that the peptide hormone oxytocin might be a potent mechanism in the stress-protective effect of social behavior in both women and men," he told Reuters Health.
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