In a previous study, the impact of giving a presentation to a group of several hundred maize geneticists was reported by (James et al. 2015)
High resolution phenotyping of heart rate enables identification of when I am giving a presentation #Maize2015 pic.twitter.com/dfkdeIXIhc
— James Schnable (@szintri) March 12, 2015
Here we report a longer term study on the effects of academic stress: a comparison of heart rate (beats per minute (BPM)) on an academically stressed day (ie the day prior to the deadline for submitting an major grant to the National Science Foundation) and a control day (the day immediately following submission of said grant). Heat rate was quantified using a Basis Peak watch.
Timepoints where the Basis Peak watch concluded the subject was “asleep” were excluded. Potential confounding variable: My first graduate student arrived on campus the same day as the “day before grant due” dataset was collected.