FIGURE 4.

PEP changes under mental (TSST) and physical (ergometer) load: The upper panel (A) depicts the PEP reactivity during the TSST. “R” marks the measurement at rest while “Q1”–“Q8” demark TSST questions. The lower panel (B) depicts PEP reactivity and load-response dependency under physical stress. “R” marks a measurement at rest, “E1”–“E10” demark measurements under physical load and “B1”–“B6” demark measurements during the break-period. We depicted PEP measurements taken at the end of their according BP measurements. Declining n-numbers are due to dropouts (during TSST) or reaching the maximum heart rate at earlier load steps (ergometer). Whiskers show confidence intervals (p < 0.05) for relative PEP values. The absolute variance of PEP is more clearly depicted in Figure 8.