Does Driving Wear You Out? You Might Be Experiencing ‘Accelerousal’
Daily commutes – those stops, the starts, all that stress – get on your last nerve.
It might be, according to a new study from the University of Houston’s Computational Physiology Lab. Ioannis Pavlidis, UH Eckhard Pfeiffer Professor of computer science, and his team of researchers took a look at why some drivers can stay cool behind the wheel while others keep getting more irked.
“We call the phenomenon ‘accelerousal.’ Arousal being a psychology term that describes stress. Accelarousal is what we identify as stress provoked by acceleration events, even small ones,” said Pavlidis, who designed the research. According to the professor, the reason for it goes deeper than you might think.
