Stress toll mounted as bid to deliver vote dragged on
THE battle to block Brexit over the last two years sent the nation’s stress levels soaring.
A two-year study of 2,200 people showed key moments in Britain’s political struggles to exit the EU were marked by spikes in their stress hormone cortisol.
Calm was only restored once Boris Johnson won last month’s landslide election and it was clear that he would “Get Brexit Done”.
The window into the national mood came thanks to volunteers who agreed to take saliva tests for one day a month at four specific times – on waking, at noon, 4pm and before bed.
It also checked their blood pressure and then compared the findings with major national events.
All the peaks in stress corresponded with crises in the Brexit process, as a Remainer parliament tried repeatedly to thwart the Leave majority vote in the 2016 referendum.
The first spike in March 2018 came at a time when the then Prime Minister Theresa May told the country it was “approaching a crucial moment” and later outlined terms of the transition period.
Further spikes happened in June when the Withdrawal Act became law, October when European Council president Donald Tusk said a No Deal was “becoming more likely than ever” and December when Mrs May won a vote of no-confidence.
Researchers from Medichecks found high cortisol levels among 27 percent of testers last year – when the Remainer rearguard was at its most intense.
This marked a significant increase of 58 per cent compared to 2018 when the average proportion of those suffering from high stress was found to be 17 per cent.
The highest reading of 70 per cent of participants showing high cortisol levels was recorded before bedtime in April last year.
The UK had been due to leave the EU on April 12, only for Mrs May to agree to an extension of the deadline to October 31.
But the study found stress dropped last month after Mr Johnson’s victory which ended Brexit uncertainty – and spared Britain the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn Government.