The Workplace Stress Initiative is a collaborative partnership
that promotes healthy workplace practices to reduce workplace stress in Manitoba.

Across the country, people are experiencing increasing levels of stress. Experts say our health will suffer. Part 1 of a six-part series.

In a small, windowless room at the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital in Montreal this winter, 80 employees, from psychiatrists and nurses to custodians and support staff, will undergo a series of psychological tests designed to stress them out.

Before and after each test, the subjects will be asked to spit into a small plastic vial, their saliva used to detect the hormones that are released when the brain is faced with a stressful situation.

The point of the study? To see how results vary according to what jobs we do – and whether those of us with less flexibility to juggle work and family demands, with less control over our schedules, have chronically higher levels of stress. Read more