Good news to choco lovers! No need to feel guilty loving every minute of eating chocolate, because a new study has found that eating dark chocolate every day can reduce stress. Whoopee!

The research found that people who were highly stressed found themselves to have lower levels of stress hormones after eating chocolate everyday for two weeks. Their servings were 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate daily.

To compare the data, doctors took urine and blood plasma samples from the 30 participants at the beginning, halfway through and at the end of the two week test. The doctors did find lower levels of the stress hormones cortisol and catecholamines at the end of the sampling.

Sunil Kochhar of the Nestle Research Center in Switzerland led the research team, and they published their findings in the Oct. 7 issue of the Journal of Proteome Research.

The researchers noted, “The daily consumption of dark chocolate resulted in a significant modification of the metabolism of healthy and free living human volunteers with potential long-term consequences on human health within only 2 weeks treatment.”

(via LiveScience)