Stress Reaction Quiz

Five stress reactions live in your body.

Which one are you ready to address?

Take this short quiz and find out.

Take the quiz 5–10 minutes

Hey, you are about to learn something new about yourself. Something that could actually change your life. And that may make you feel certain ways. So, if it's supportive to ground and center, then let's take that time.

First, notice your breath.
Orient toward your body for a moment. Breathe.

Then, sense and untense your forehead. Sense and untense the eyes. Sense and untense the jaw. Feel the soles of your feet. Feel the earth meeting you there.

Feel the change in yourself. Notice how this simple awareness process has brought you back to yourself, back to a steady rhythm. Allow yourself to come back here when pulled away.

Now, here's a reminder: There are no right or wrong answers here. This is a quiz, but it's more aptly a mirror… so allow yourself an honesty that makes this quiz worth it.

Take the quiz Or read on for what you'll find inside.
What the quiz does

When we say we're stressed, we're usually stressed about something.

The job. The relationship. The conversation we didn't finish. We name the thing pressing in from outside.

But that's only the outside half. The inside half is how your body holds it β€” the protective shape you slip into when the pressure builds in your life.

Many people have learned to work with the outside half of this relationship by addressing the practical and relational components of stress. But few have realized that by working with the body β€” and how the body holds stress β€” they can learn to manage stress with vastly more spaciousness and ease.

Working with the shape of stress β€” which I call embodied stress states β€” can drastically improve your relationship to the pressure that stress creates.

There are five embodied stress states, also known as stress reactions or stress responses:

Fight Flight Fawn Functional Freeze Freeze

Each one is an adaptive survival pattern your nervous system has been deploying β€” probably for a long time β€” in service of you.

People live in combination of these, but one often leads. By understanding one β€” learning how to support it so it can be less reactive β€” we begin to understand the others. This quiz finds the one leading you right now, the one ready to be addressed and better managed.

Your stress reaction isn't a flaw. It's an adaptation your ancestors had, and now you have. And now you get to learn this pattern β€” so you can understand it, and let it enhance your life, not weigh you down.

Ready? Take the quiz.

About 5–10 minutes. You'll get your leading stress reaction, plus a short series of emails breaking down what it means and how to be in better relationship to it.

Begin