#Person1#: Hey Claire, you've been really quiet these last few days. Is something wrong? 
#Person2#: I've been really stressed. It's the end of the year and I've got so much stuff to do! I feel like I'm drowning in work. 
#Person1#: Well, stress is a real thing. It's not an imaginary condition. 
#Person2#: It's seriously affecting my life! I can't sleep, I don't have much of an appetite and my husband says I've been kind of short tempered. Other people seem to handle stress okay. . . why am I so weak? 
#Person1#: You're not weak. . . you're stressed out! Stress has been a part of the human condition for millions of years. Back when we still lived in the trees we had to watch out for predators. . . and as you might imagine, that was pretty stressful. 
#Person2#: Yeah, but I don't see any tigers or leopards roaming around our office. My stress is just about silly paperwork! 
#Person1#: But you're actually having the same reaction as our tree-dwelling ancestors! It's called the flight or fight response. Each time you feel like something's threatening you, your body decides whether to run away or fight. . . it causes all sorts of chemical reactions in the body. 
#Person2#: So a deadline will cause that same reaction? 
#Person1#: It could. Modern humans actually have more flight or fight responses than our ancestors did. They just had a couple of close calls every day, but today, we have dozens or even hundreds! 
#Person2#: So the life of a cave woman was less stressful than my life? 
Claire is pretty stressed and the stress seriously affects her life. #Person1# comforts her that stress is a part of the human condition and Claire's stress about the paper is similar to their ancestors' stress about the environment, which is called flight or fight responses.
discuss stress