How Teenage Stress is Affecting Youth
Stress is a widespread emotional reaction to certain situations occurring in people’s lives, but it is impacting our generation more than it ever has before. It’s a response from the body that something unusual may be happening. While stress can be an advantageous method used to keep humans out of danger and alert, it can have undesired effects outside of life-or-death situations. People associate stress with negative emotions regarding school, work, family, or other factors. This is when things get out of control.
Stress is a common factor that can lead to strokes, heart problems, personality disorders, and much more, depending on the severity of the stress one is experiencing. These stress-related health conditions in turn act as some of the most common causes of death.
Multiple studies were conducted concerning this issue. In a 2018 study, researchers analyzed data and found that rates of anxiety had increased amongst kids from ages 6-17 since 2011 and have been continuing to increase as the years go on.
Children attending school, anywhere from elementary students to college students, usually show the highest stress rates in youth. Within this group, the highest stress levels were found to occur right after returning to school after holiday breaks. Other findings include that 58% of teens know someone who has considered self-harm, or have considered it themselves, which is the highest they have ever conducted.
These new polls show the severe impact on students' mental health caused by this significant increase in anxiety. This causes disruption not only in student’s learning abilities but in their daily tasks as well.
In response, various organizations have pursued many methods to raise awareness for this matter and eventually decrease the level of stress that teenagers experience daily, including filling out forms, hanging up posters for affirmations, and so on. However, it seems that stress continues to increase, despite all efforts.
These types of stressors can develop from issues that one might be experiencing in their life. These issues can begin from different aspects of one’s life such as an argument they got into with a family member or a relationship that failed. These kinds of issues can devastate an individual, causing them to doubt themself and inhibit them from focusing on their education.
Through surveys and polls, it was found that the problem that most teens arrive at is finding someone to help them deal with the stress. This person can be a family member, such as a parent or sibling, or any trusted person, such as a friend or a teacher. Even if one can find someone to share their issue with, it takes a lot of courage and will to be able to express your emotions to that person.