Some people gauge their stress levels by how much they’re sweating. Others, by how many packets of Oreo cookies they’re eating. And still others realize they’re stressed only after tallying up the number of people who’ve managed to irritate them that day.
You see, everyone has their own way of realizing that their blood has really started to boil. But now, scientists have discovered a more accurate method of measuring stress.
Researchers from The University of Western Ontario have developed a way to measure chronic stress by testing hair follicles for the stress hormone, cortisol.
In the study, people who had higher levels of this hormone in their locks were more at risk for a heart attack than those with lower levels.
The reason: “Increased cortisol results in an increase of blood pressure, blood sugars, and blood clotting, all of which are known risk factors for cardiovascular disease,” says study author Stan VanUum, M.D., Ph.D.
In the past, measuring the toll your job, marriage, or financial stress put on your body was a major hurdle, and scientists could only pinpoint how stressed a person was over a series of days, not months.
But because cortisol becomes trapped in hair follicles for at least six months—unlike secretions in urine or saliva, which dissipate after a few days—this new test makes it easier for researchers to delineate a person’s risk for suffering a major coronary event, like a heart attack.