Ileana Hatfield, a leading American psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, found that stress is as contagious as a cold virus, and that “second-hand” stress and anxiety can spread quickly in the office. Sally, a 26-year-old professional woman working in London, England, knows this well. Are you a friend’s emotional garbage can? The results of a study show that bad moods are contagious. So if you’re a good listener, you need to be on the lookout for “second-hand” stress contagion from now on. At work, have you ever heard a colleague complain about a bad day at work or too much stress? When colleagues pouring out their grievances, do you show a caring face, listen carefully? A study in the United States shows that listening to the grievances of colleagues will make their own stress increases, because bad emotions can be “contagious”. Ileana Hatfield, a leading American psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, found that stress is as contagious as a cold virus, and that “second-hand” stress and anxiety can spread quickly in the office. Sally, a 26-year-old professional woman working in London, England, knows this very well. The Daily Mail quoted Sally as saying, “The girl sitting next to me in the office has had a marital setback and spends all day telling me about things at home, everything.” Listening to her whining, Sally couldn’t help but reflect on her own marriage, carefully combing through every detail and even imagining some of the problems out of thin air to discuss with her colleagues. That’s when she realized that these imaginary problems irritated her. Sally says that initially, when discussing family issues with colleagues, it felt like the two became close, but today, “these negative issues depress me every day.” Hatfield says that when talking, people learn to mimic each other’s facial expressions, voices and postures with surprising speed. This is done to get more involved in the conversation and to empathize with what the other person is going through. ”People are like sponges, absorbing what people around them call ’emotional contagion,'” she says. When feeling the stress of others, one can feel the stress oneself. In Hatfield’s opinion, the constant complaints and gripes that reach the ears can cause one’s mind to involuntarily turn to the negative. Hatfield said that when listening to complaints, people are not only affected by the emotions of others in their thoughts and become negative, but their body language also changes, shrugging their shoulders and frowning when they speak. Men and some strong character of women to the office “second-hand” pressure has a certain “immunity”, Hatfield said, women by the “second-hand” pressure contagion risk is the greatest, because They are more likely to relate to the feelings of others. Daniel Goleman, author of “Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence,” agrees with Hatfield’s findings. He says, “When we communicate with others, we are always transmitting and receiving emotional information as part of the communication. This emotional information exchange most of the time is not easy to notice, and sometimes very obvious.” Currently, workplace stress is so important that the Chartered Institute of Talent Management and Development has even dubbed it the “Black Death of the 21st Century. Peter Butterworth, PhD, senior researcher at the Centre for Mental Health Research at the National Australian University, said that the work environment has the most obvious impact on people’s mental health compared to the content of their work. Too much stress at work can lead to depression, anxiety and even heart disease.