Short term vs. Long Term stress

The overall notion of "stress" can be categorized into two terminologies: acute and chronic. Acute stress consists of short term stressful incidents, and chronic stress requires the stress to be long term. While long term stress can be measured in correlation with cortisol levels, which is most commonly tested with blood draws, which is both invasive and costly. These techniques can be performed in a lab by technicians. However, short-term spikes correlate with salivary amylase, otherwise known as alpha amylase (AA). AA can be quantified through ELISA or an aptamer. ELISA uses a protein binding antibody, which is costly. An aptamer uses single stranded DNA as a non-invasive and less costly technique to detect the protein in saliva.