Study reveals why chewing gum could help you focus and relieve stress

Humans have been chewing gum for thousands of years, long after the flavor fades and without any clear nutritional benefit.

The custom dates back at least 8,000 years to Scandinavia, where people chewed birch bark pitch to soften it and turn it into tool glue. Other ancient cultures, including the Greeks, Native Americans and Mayans, also chewed tree resins for pleasure or calming effects, National Geographic recently reported.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, William Wrigley Jr. transformed chewing gum from a novelty to a mass consumer habit through relentless and innovative marketing. Its brands, including Juicy Fruit and Spearmint, promoted gum as a way to calm nerves, control hunger and stay focused.

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“Are you worried? Chew gum,” said a 1916 article, according to Kerry Segrave’s book “Chewing Gum in America, 1850-1920: The Rise of an Industry.” “Do you stay up at night? Chew gum,” he continued. “Are you depressed? Is the world against you? Chew gum.”

In the 1940s, a study found that chewing resulted in less tension, but couldn’t say why. “Whoever chews gum relaxes and works harder,” the New York Times wrote at the time about the study’s results.

Chewing gum became one of the first forms of wellness, and companies are trying to revive that idea today as gum sales decline, according to National Geographic.

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But only now are scientists finally beginning to understand the biology behind those long-held beliefs.

A 2025 review by researchers at the University of Szczecin in Poland analyzed more than three decades of brain imaging studies to examine what happens inside the brain when people chew gum. Using MRI, EEG, and near-infrared spectroscopy research, the authors found that chewing alters brain activity in regions related to movement, attention, and stress regulation.

The findings help clarify why a seemingly pointless task can feel relaxing or concentrating, even once the taste has faded.

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The review found that chewing gum activated not only the motor and sensory networks of the brain involved in chewing, but also higher-order regions related to attention, alertness and emotional control. EEG studies found brief changes in brain wave patterns related to increased alertness and what researchers call “relaxed concentration.”

“If you do a fairly boring task for a long time, chewing seems to help with concentration,” Crystal Haskell-Ramsay, a professor of biological psychology at Northumbria University, told National Geographic.

The review also supports previous findings that chewing gum can relieve stress, but only in certain situations. In laboratory experiments, people who chewed gum during mildly stressful tasks, such as public speaking or doing mental calculations, often reported lower levels of anxiety than those who did not.

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However, chewing gum did not consistently reduce anxiety in high-stress medical situations, such as immediately before surgery, and offered no clear benefit when participants faced unsolvable problems designed to induce frustration.

In multiple studies, researchers also found that people who chewed gum did not remember lists of words or stories any better than those who did not, and any increase in attention faded shortly after they stopped chewing.

Experts suspect that chewing gum may simply feed the desire to fidget.

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“Although these effects are typically short-lived, the range of results…underscores the ability of chewing gum to modulate brain function beyond simple oral motor control,” the researchers wrote.

“However, at this time, the neural changes associated with gum chewing cannot be directly linked to the positive behavioral and functional outcomes observed in the studies,” they added.

Future research should address long-term impacts, isolate taste or stress variables, and explore potential therapeutic applications, the scientists said.

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The findings also carry caveats beyond brain science. Although sugar-free gum can help reduce cavities, News Digital previously reported that dentists warn that acids, sweeteners and excessive chewing can damage teeth or cause other side effects.

News Digital has reached out to the study’s authors for comment.