Activity 1: Stress Test
3. Let students know that stress is a normal reaction to the demands of life; when your brain perceives a threat, your
body releases a burst of hormones to fuel your fight/flight/freeze response; and when the threat is gone, your body
returns to normal.
4. Let students know that their stress score will change often, depending on life circumstances. Encourage them to
continue taking the test in the future to assess their scores at different times, and notice how it fluctuates.
Discussion Questions
Question: What is the first thing that pops in your head when you hear the word "stress"?
Answer: Various responses, all answers are valid.
Question: We all talk about stress, but what is it? How would you define it?
Answer: Stress comes from both the good and the bad things that happen to us, and it is a normal reaction to the
demands in our lives. When our brains perceive a situation to be threatening, our bodies release a sudden rush of
hormones that send us into an automatic “fight, flight or freeze” instinct. This biological event is called the “stress
response.”
Question: What are the different types of stress responses?
Answer: Fight, flight, or freeze. The “fight” response does not mean physical violence. It means your body prepares
to take action against the demand. The "flight" response prepares the individual to escape from the situation to
maintain their safety. While this response might be helpful if the demand was an angry dog chasing you, it is not as
helpful if you need to write a test. The "freeze" response is what happens when our bodies and minds are
overwhelmed and do not react. Think of a time you have been watching a scary movie or a friend had jumped out
from behind a wall to scare you. If you froze or felt like you could not move, or you couldn’t talk or make a sound your
body was trying to maintain your wellness by shutting down.
1. Instruct students to complete the Stress Test either as a print out, or on a separate sheet of paper by
choosing a number between 1 and 4 to indicate how often they encounter each experience. Ask them to
think about the past 2-3 weeks, rather than the entire year so far.
2. Have students add up the numbers on the Stress Test, then show the following scoring:
Under 20 — Low Stress 21 to 30 — Medium Stress 31 and up — High Stress
Question: What happens inside our body when we go into “Fight, Flight, or Freeze”?
Answer: In all three of the responses, the body will release a burst of both adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline will
increase the heart rate and blood pressure, expands the air passages in our lungs, enlarge the pupils in our eyes,
redistribute blood to our muscles, and slows down our metabolism. Cortisol will increase glucose in the bloodstream,
slows our functions that do not aid in keeping us safe, and taxes our immune system responses.