FYI, guys, if an exhausted woman is stressed out, keep the noise level to a minimum.

According a study from Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University’s Stress Research Institute, women suffering from stress-related exhaustion show hypersensitivity to sounds.

The study exposed 208 women and 140 men, ages 23 to 71–all emotionally exhausted–to five minutes of physical stress, such as hands in ice, mental stress tests, and observational stress.

The researchers found that exhausted women found sounds–some as low as 60 decibel (level of normal conversation)–more uncomfortably loud than non-exhausted women. The same results were found in men, but the differences weren’t statistically significant. The researchers say that there was no difference in sensitivity to sounds between the groups before the stress exposure.

“When you are hypersensitive to sound, some normal sounds, such as the rattle of cutlery or the sound of a car engine, can feel ear-piercing,” said Dan Hasson, associate professor at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and affiliated with Stockholm University’s Stress Research Institute. “Given how common it is for people to work in environments with different kinds of disturbing sounds, this hypersensitivity can be really disabling for certain individuals.”

Do sounds disable you when you’re exhausted?

(Image via Flickr: Steve Hall / Creative Commons)