A latest research stated that chewing gum can help in reducing stress and anxiety.

Andrew Scholey, Ph.D., professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia led this research study to be presented at the 2008 10th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine. It was found that the use of chewing gum was associated with higher alertness, reduced anxiety and stress, and improvement in overall performance on multi-tasking activities.

The study examined the effect of chewing gum in reducing induced anxiety and/or acute psychological stress while participants performed a battery of multi-tasking activities and really it helped relieve anxiety, improve alertness and reduce stress among 40 individuals of average 22 years old on which the study was conducted.

The study was performed on the Defined Intensity Stressor Simulation (DISS) on a multi-tasking platform which reliably induces stress and also includes performance measures, while chewing and not chewing gum.

Anxiety, alertness and stress levels were measured before and after participants completed the DISS. It was revealed that the gum chewers have a reduced anxiety level as compared to non-gum chewers by nearly 17 per cent during mild stress and nearly 10 percent in moderate stress.

Levels of salivary cortisol (a physiological stress marker) in gum chewers were lower than those of non-gum chewers by 16 per cent during mild stress and nearly 12 per cent in moderate stress.

Also participants experienced greater levels of alertness when they chewed gum. Gum chewers showed improvement in alertness over non-gum chewers by nearly 19 per cent during mild stress and 8 per cent in moderate stress.