See Stress In Action

Photo by Kevin Grieve on Unsplash

It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that we are an overstressed population. As I began thinking about the origins of stress I started questioning how one might go about measuring it, the same way we can so easily measure steps taken or temperature these days.

I went looking for quantitative metrics that could point to the increase or decrease of stress and I was thinking these were going to be measurements that one would need to “test” or “take” such as blood pressure and blood oxygen level. What I found is that while these types of biometric readings (HRV, Cortisol Level Testing, SpO2 readings) can be used as a reliable measurement of stress, I learned that you can watch the body physically change in response to stress and that observing these physical changes is as important to measuring stress as the information from the biometric readings

10 Physical Changes in the Body as a Result of Stress

Regular Sized Pupils (left: Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash) Vs. Dilated Pupil (right: bodylanguageexpert.co)

• Pupils Dilate & Eyelids Retract- this happens so we can take in more visual information about the situation and the environment around us. Our eyes are designed in such a way that when the pupil dilates we are able to take in more light in a dark…