Assessing stress

In addition to gathering reports from adolescents about stress (as well as anxiety and mindfulness), we use objective measures of the body's response to stressful experiences. We measure breathing, sweating, heart rate (and moment-to-moment changes in heart rate, or heart rate variability), and blood pressure. To measure stress responding, it's really important to expose participants to something that's stressful. What we use is a very robust, standardized stressor called the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993). In the picture is an example of what these sensors look like, an element of the Trier Social Stress Test, and a participant completing some questionnaires while hooked up to our sensors.