‘Feeling hungry, dear customer?’, ‘your ride is on the way’, ‘please rate us’ — notifications can make people sick

Getting a stream of ‘alert’ notifications can trigger the survival response, initiating the secretion of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol in the bloodstream.

Every now and then when the phone buzzes, be it a notification from the social media or reminders to rate a food delivery partner or the countdown to an approaching cab, the eyes fail to resist and one tends to bend their head into the blasting screen demanding attention. 

Looks harmless on the front, medical doctors say these drop-down messages can cause ‘micro-stress’ which can later catch up with a person’s poor cardiovascular health.

As per research, through history of human evolution, various environmental threats have shaped a person’s fear response. This is accompanied by a cascade of physiological changes in the body that readies the body to either fight or flight from the dangerous situation.

As per Healthline, getting a stream of ‘alert’ notifications can trigger the survival response, initiating the secretion of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream.

Also, the language used by these applications in issuing an alert also has an influence on the body with negative connotations causing an increased urgency.

Speaking to DH, Dr. Chirag D, a cardiologist at Aster Hospital (Whitefield, Bengaluru) said: “One single notification might feel harmless, but lots of repeated breaks in your focus during the day can leave the body in this longer, ongoing mode of readiness. That can raise stress hormone activity and also cut down the chance for proper mental recuperation.”

Micro stress

When any form of information comes towards a person in the form of E-mails, texts or notifications, it demands attention and can be interpreted as an environmental threat.

“Essentially the brain reads those signals as requests for attention, which then leads to short surges of cortisol and adrenaline. But when the phone continues to buzz, it keeps the nervous system stuck in a state of survival for minutes or even hours. If the body stays alert for extended periods, the heart rate begins to rise, blood pressure fluctuates, sleep won’t come easy and anxiety will start to kick in. This is a real biological cycle and it does happen when notifications keep bouncing back at us,” said Dr. Chirag.

The cardiologist also warned against a rising ‘anticipatory stress’ where a digital device user exercises hypervigilance in anticipation of incoming texts, checking the phone or laptops in every few minutes.

Also, digital information overload has been clinically associated with burnout and mental exhaustion. 

For instance, as per a research paper published in ScienceDirect, when the information a person receives can exceed one’s brain capacity to process it, it results in a stress response, cognitive fatigue and decision paralysis.

Speaking to DH, Dr. G Dimpu Edwin Jonathan, a cardiologist at Aster RV Hospital said: “Notifications might not directly cause any heart disease but the problem starts when they begin to stack with other risk factors that are depriving body of some needful quiet such as poor sleep, workplace burnout, no workout and a high caffeine intake. All this eventually adds up to inflammation in the body. Digital stimulation is adding more risk to the situation. Just like the body, the brain needs some quiet too.”

As per experts, more than the technology, the loss of recovery time for the brain to recuperate adds to the burden of cardiovascular risk.