By Bert Brown
We all become stressed for a number of reasons. There are big stressors in life such as death or loss of a job. And there are daily stressors such as not having enough time, too many things to do, or worry about the future.
To determine how much stress people are feeling in their lives, researchers have been coming up with ways to measure stress for decades. This can range from assessments to interviews to full on hook the body up to sensors and run through a series of tests and exercises.
One of the most popular and influential approaches to the measurement of stress was developed back in 1967 by psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe. They were studying whether or not stress contributed to illness.
They asked more than 5,000 medical patients to say whether or not they had experienced any of a series of 43 life events in the previous two years.
The result was the creation of the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). Most people call this life stress test the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. This tool helps us measure the stress load we carry from life changes.
You can take this life stress test below and see how your score compares with the risk of becoming sick due to stress overload.
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How to Interpret Your Score
| Total Score | Comment |
|---|---|
| 150 or less | You have a relatively low amount of life change and a low susceptibility to a stress-induced health breakdown. |
| 151 to 299 | You have about a 50% chance of a stress-induced health breakdown in the next two years. |
| 300 to 600 | You have about an 80% chance of a stress-induced health breakdown in the next 2 years according to the Holmes-Rahe statistical prediction model. |
Additional Considerations
Please keep the following in mind when thinking about your score:
- On average, most people are unlikely to encounter the top life events and situations on a regular basis. These are life event that happen infrequently.
- But know that when you do encounter people who are or have recently been through any of the top life events, that they may certainly be experiencing higher stress levels.
- Not everyone responds the same way to a particular life event. Giving a set weighting to a life event assumes everyone reacts the same. And that’s just not the case.
- There are cultural differences as well in terms of how various cultures as a whole respond to various life events. This assessment does not take cultural bias into consideration.
Awareness is Key
Most of what I write about is more about stress management, ways to be more mindful, gain more energy, and developing your mindset.
We all know stress is in our lives. But it can be helpful to understand where our level of stress is.
It is also helpful to know what life events can stress other people. (Even if those life events don’t stress us as much.) This awareness allows us to be more mindful and develop a greater understanding of how we might help family, friends, and colleagues.
Here’s a post where I wrote about some ways to manage the top events on the life stress test.
Find related articles below on additional strategies and techniques that have helped me to manage stress.
**This table is taken from “The Social Readjustment Rating Scale”, Thomas H. Holmes and Richard H. Rahe, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Volume 11, Issue 2, August 1967, Pages 213-218, Copyright © 1967 Published by Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
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