Hormonal Responses to Psychological Stress in Men Preparing for Skydiving¹

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between the hormonal and psychological responses of young men about to engage in a potentially life-threatening event. Subjects were recruited to take their first skydiving jump. The scores on questionnaires designed to assess anxiety were not significantly increased at 0800 h on the morning before the jump by comparison with scores obtained from the same subjects 3-5 days previously. However, a psychological instrument for rating of events indicated significantly increased intensity, and sympathetic nervous system activity, as measured by the salivary amylase response, was increased over self-control values. Salivary cortisol and testosterone levels were significantly lower on the morning of the jump than self-control values and values in control subjects determined at the same time of day. However, plasma LH was not suppressed. The anxiety and stress measures as well as the rating of events rose to high levels just before the jump. With the exception of testosterone, which remained low, serum cortisol, PRL, and GH all increased greatly subsequent to the rise in psychological measures, reached peak values before or shortly after landing, and declined significantly within the next hour. Anxiety and subjective stress scores declined to those of the self-control values within 15 min after landing, but the rating of events scale remained significantly elevated. In summary, reported anxiety associated with a purely psychological stressor was suppressed until within a few hours preceding the event, but was preceded by an increase in sympathetic nervous system activity and suppression of plasma cortisol and salivary testosterone levels. The event itself was associated with a reversal of the cortisol decline; other stress-associated hormones increased, but salivary testosterone remained low. (J Clin Endocrinol

A pilot study of psychotherapist trainees' alpha-amylase and cortisol levels during treatment of recently suicidal clients with borderline traits.

“…It is important to consider what type of stress studies of this nature are addressing. The stress involved in conducting therapy with this population is more likely interpersonal in nature as opposed to stressors experienced with less interpersonal tasks, such as jumping from an airplane with a parachute (Chatterton et al, 1997). Only a handful of studies have examined the interpersonal stress that was likely to have been experienced by our participants.…”

“…The other involves activation of the locus ceruleus and the sympathetic nervous system component of the autonomic nervous system with the rapid release of catecholamines such as norepinephrine into the blood stream (Chrousos & Gold, 1992). Salivary alpha-amylase (AA), an enzyme produced in the oral mucosa, serves as a reliable marker for sympathetic nervous system activation during stress, similar to increases in plasma catecholamines (Chatterton, Vogelson, & Hudgens, 1997; Granger, Kivlighan, El-Sheikh, Gordis, & Stroud, 2007; Nater et al, 2005; Takai et al, 2004). Reliable measurement of HPA activation during stress is available through the measurement of salivary C (Kirschbaum & Hellhammer, 1994).…”

“…Stress associated with therapy sessions was measured using the noninvasive collection of pre- and postsession salivary samples that were analyzed for AA and C concentrations. Because AA and C are elevated following both physical and psychological stressful situations (e.g., Chatterton et al, 1997; Frankenhaeuser, 1982), we hypothesized that (a) these physiological indicators of stress would increase from pre- to postsession, (b) increases would be directly related to session difficulty, and (c) increases would be inversely related to greater working alliance.…”

Heart rate variability and critical flicker fusion frequency changes during and after parachute jumping in experienced skydivers

“…Parachute jumping is considered as a "real-world acute emotional stress" or "life-threatening" event (Mujica-Parodi et al 2009a, b;Dikecligil and Mujica-Parodi 2010) and thus commonly used as a model to assess the physiological mechanisms involved in the acute stress response (Dikecligil and Mujica-Parodi 2010; Hare et al 2013). In particular, free fall has been studied in beginners with the scope of understanding psychological rather than environmental stress (Chatterton et al 1997;Dikecligil and Mujica-Parodi 2010;Roth et al 1996;Hare et al 2013;Taverniers et al 2011;Cavenett and Nixon 2006). During parachute jumping, it seems well admitted that the steady-state response to the stress exposure is an increase in heart rate (HR) (Shane and Slinde 1968;Reid et al 1971;Schedlowski and Tewes 1992;Roth et al 1996).…”

Investigation of the Endogenous Stress Response System in Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia

“…Similarly, levels of salivary α-amylase have been reported to increase under both physically and psychologically stressful conditions, and have been shown to be associated with norepinephrine change in response to stress [15]. Furthermore, salivary α-amylase is relatively independent from confounding factors such as body weight, smoking, activity level, drinking, eating and gender; therefore, it has been proposed to be a reliable marker of ANS sympathetic component activity [15,16,17]. …”