Ways of measuring stress - help needed

pinkbear

Hi,
I am helping some 13 year old students with a Young Scientist project. They want to measure stress levels in people before and after certain activities. They are using 3 things - (i) questionnaires (ii) heart rate monitors (iii) blood pressure monitors. Can anyone think of another way they could measure stress without any particularly advanced equipment, and that could be reasonably understood by that age group. They are considering pupilometer apps to measure pupil dilation. Any ideas on whether that might work or not?
Thanks for any ideas you might have.
PinkBear

EoghanIRL

People sweat when they are stressed .
http://www.m.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/stress

Also you can tell if someone is stressed by simply observing their actions and gestures.

I always get muscle tension after studying for too long .

Hope this helps .

loopylulu

Cortisol (stress hormone) can be measured in saliva.

pinkbear

Any ideas on the best way to do this loopy lulu, given the age / ability of the students? I've sent them off to research apps /devices to measure it, but if you've any ideas, that would be great.

Thanks EoghanIRL.... I think it's harder for them to measure sweat. They want to measure stress, then ten minutes (after particular task) check it again. Ideally something with a number associated with it is best.

Thanks again.

Dingle_berry

pinkbear wrote: »

Any ideas on the best way to do this loopy lulu, given the age / ability of the students? I've sent them off to research apps /devices to measure it, but if you've any ideas, that would be great.

Thanks EoghanIRL.... I think it's harder for them to measure sweat. They want to measure stress, then ten minutes (after particular task) check it again. Ideally something with a number associated with it is best.

Thanks again.

I would suggest Some form of psychological questionnaire, feelings on a scale of 1 to 5 or something.
Measure pulse, blood pressure, respiration rate and respiration volume. Plot the trends on a graph. Take photographs of the subjects faces and measure changes in pupil diameter, forehead wrinkling and lip pursing.
Maybe do the inverse as well, get them to listen to a guided meditation or mindfulness of breathing exercise and measure their stress indicators.

Cortisol is the stress hormone but it's slower to respond. It's also affected by things like insomnia and the time of the day.
Adrenaline is a short term stress hormone with well known effects.
Measuring either of these needs Health and Safety evaluation and ethical consideration. Is it safe for the students to measure it, how do you prevent cross infection of something like cold sores, how do you dispose of the waste, etc. what do you do if you get an abnormally high or low result, ignore it? Tell the subject?

pinkbear

Thanks for the input Dingle_berry. Yes, they have a psychological questionnaire done, and pulse & blood pressure monitors. Respiration rate would be a good one. They are coming on well at using Excel so they'll be able to graph their results. Photos of the faces / wrinkling / lip pursing would be too difficult to be totally objective about, but the change in pupil diameter is definitely a possibility.

I don't want them getting into messing with blood or fluids or even touching people for all the reasons you mention. But good point about doing some kind of H & S evaluation in general.... one of their dads is a doctor so he could help decide at what blood pressure / heart rate / pupil dilation should the subject be told that there may be a problem.

Super. Thanks for all the ideas! I've just been drafted in as their mentor at the last minute, so this is a great help to me.