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Key takeaways:
- The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale is a self-assessment tool for measuring stress levels based on life events.
- How you experience stress depends on your ability to manage the demands on you at a particular point in time.
- This tool helps you to identify high-stress periods and implement coping strategies to reduce your risk of stress.
- Severe cases of stress can result in serious health problems. Seek advice from qualified health professionals if you're concerned about stress-related health problems, or if stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness.
How much stress are you under? And is it enough to make you ill?
Your ability to handle the demands upon you is key to your experience of stress. So if several difficulties arise at once, the stress can quickly ramp up.
For example, starting a new job might be a challenging but manageable experience if everything else in your life is stable and positive. But if it happens when you've just moved into a new house, or when your partner is ill, for example, you might find it very hard to cope.
The full impact of stress can be difficult to predict, since not all unusual events are equally hard to deal with.
The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) – more commonly known as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale – is a self-assessment tool for measuring the total stress you're experiencing. It can also help you to respond effectively to whatever stresses you face. [1] We've created an interactive version of it, below.
The Social Readjustment Rating Scale
The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale) was developed in 1967 by psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe. They decided to study the links between stress and illness. They examined the medical records of more than 5,000 patients, and focused specifically on 43 common life events.
They asked people which of these events (called Life Change Units, or LCUs) they'd experienced in the previous two years. That allowed Holmes and Rahe to work out the relative "weights" of different types of stress.
It also showed them the point at which someone's combined stress load was likely to put them at risk.
Note:
Some major life or career events that are generally considered to be "happy," such as marriage, or "neutral/ambiguous," such as a change of job, can still add to stress. Find out how to manage the stress involved with these types of transitions with our article, The Change Curve.
What Does the Holmes and Rahe Scale Measure?
To score your stress levels, simply decide whether each of the events in the Statements column has happened to you in the last year, selecting Yes or No. Then click Calculate My Total.
Note:
If you experienced the same event more than once, then to gain a more accurate total, add the score again for each extra occurrence of the event.
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. Permission to reproduce granted by the publisher.
This scale must not be used in any way to cause harm to an individual's professional career.
What to Do About Your Stress Scale Score
If you find that you're at a moderate or high level of risk, then an obvious first thing to do is to try to avoid future life crises.
While this is clearly easier said than done, you can usually avoid moving house, for example, close to when you retire, or when one of your children goes off to college. Or you can learn conflict resolution skills to minimize conflict with other people.
Of course, there are situations that you can't simply avoid. But you can explore what you can do to control, influence, or accept and adapt in such circumstances. See our article, Overwhelmed at Work, for more on this. And for more on reducing stress, visit the Stress Tools area of Mind Tools.
Is the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale Valid?
Some critics have suggested that the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale is weak in certain areas. For instance, some believe that different cultural groups react differently to different life events.
In one example of this, a study compared American and Malaysian participants. Interestingly, the Malaysians' attitudes toward breaking the law and toward relationships were different overall from those of the Americans studied, meaning that their experience of stress was different, even though they had the same score. [2]
So keep cultural differences in mind as you score your own life events.
Warning:
Stress can cause severe health problems and, in extreme cases, death. While these stress-management techniques have been shown to have a positive effect on reducing stress, they are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably qualified health professionals if they have any concerns over stress-related illnesses, or if stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness. Health professionals should also be consulted before any major change in diet or levels of exercise.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is stress? Stress results from feeling under pressure or threatened. It usually occurs when we are in situations we feel are unmanageable or out of our control.
How can stress affect me? Stress is a normal emotion, and a small amount can be motivational. But too much can be dangerous, as we have shown above. Too much stress can result in mental health consequences such as depression and anxiety. There are also potential physical consequences too, such as high blood pressure, poor sleep and heart issues.
What should I do if my Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale score is high? Be mindful of your stress-inducing factors and reduce them where possible. Also, be mindful of sources you wouldn’t usually consider. For example, celebratory life events such as marriage, retirement and moving house are all stress inducing, and these are only a few examples. In extreme cases, seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional.
References[1] Holmes, T.H. and Rahe, R.H. (1967). 'The Social Readjustment Rating Scale,'
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11(2), 13-218. Available
here.
[2] Woon, T.-H. et al. (1971). 'The Social Readjustment Rating Scale: A Cross-Cultural Study of Malaysians and Americans,'
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2(4), 373-386. Available
here.
