After measuring stress hormones, Penn State researchers found that women are less stressed at work than at home, a new study reveals.

So your home should be a place where you relax and your office should be a place where you're more stressed out. However, it may be the other way round for many people, especially women. A study published by the Council on Contemporary Families found that women tend to have lower stress levels at work than at home.

The study was conducted on 22 workers of various socioeconomic levels. The researchers measured the participants' cortisol levels, a biological marker of stress, at work and at home. They found a significant drop in levels of stress at the office. The findings were similar across board, irrespective of socioeconomic status or gender or whether or not they had kids.

Considering the findings of the study, researchers said that work can actually be good for a person's mental health. In fact, employed individuals are also found to be in better physical health than their non-working counterparts.

"Further contradicting conventional wisdom, we found that women as well as men have lower levels of stress at work than at home," said Sarah Damaske, Assistant Professor of Labor & Employment Relations, Sociology, and Women's Studies at Penn State in a press statement. "In fact, women may get more renewal from work than men, because unlike men, they report themselves happier at work than at home. It is men, not women, who report being happier at home than at work."

One reason for this might be because of the less rewarding, seemingly endless household chores women perform at home. A greater alternative is to go to work and get paid for what you do. Additionally, division of labor is not equal at home as it is at a workplace.

Hence, advice given to women to cut back on their professional life and concentrate more on their home may not be the best, Damaske said. In fact, she recommends employers enact family-friendly policies that allow for more flexibility, leave and telecommuting.

The study also debunks the findings of a previous study, which claims that almost 90 percent of workers polled feel they do not have enough time in their day to do their job. For those trying to strike a balance between work and home responsibilities, the stresses of the office are often laid to blame.

In her 1997 book, "The Time Bind," sociologist Arlie Hochschild was one of the first to acknowledge that work was becoming more like home for many parents, a place of order and belonging where they willingly put in long hours. Her opinion created quite a controversy, blowing everyone's mind by arguing that home, the once- sacred haven of rest and renewal, was in fact more stressful for people than work.

Findings of the current study were published in the Journal of Science and Medicine.