Relationship Between Happiness and the Psychobiological Stress Response

Abstract

Backgrounds: This study aims to investigate the relationship between the psychobiological stress response induced by mental stress testing and Happiness (SHS) on the field-experimental paradigm. Method: We carried out SHS on 330 volunteers and extracted the high (more than 4.5) happiness group and the low (less than 4.5) happiness group. Participants took 10 minutes’ rest in an armchair prior to the task period, and were exposed for 10 minutes to mental stress testing (the speech task and the arithmetic task). After the task period, participants rested quietly for 30 minutes during the recovery period. Findings: The level of cortisol in the high happiness group was higher than that of the low happiness group during the task and the recovery period. HF in the high happiness group was higher than that in the low happiness group during the experimental session. HR in the high happiness group was lower than that in the low happiness group during the experimental session. Discussion: These results indicate that subjective happiness is likely to overcome psychobiological stress responses, namely, the person who feels happy more subjectively gets the feeling of less psychological demand.