April | Stress Awareness

Between academics, extracurriculars, and social pressures, stress can impact emotional and physical well-being. This month serves as an opportunity to raise awareness, identify stressors, and explore healthy coping strategies for both students and parents. Recognizing the signs of stress is key for both students and parents in offering support before it becomes overwhelming.

What is Stress?

According to the World Health Organization, stress is defined as a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation. Stress is not inherently bad. Some stress is good as it keeps up motivated to complete tasks, However, too much stress can impact our physical and emotional well being.

How Stress Affects Students:

• Physical Health: Headaches, sleep disturbances, and even stomach issues.

• Emotional Well-being: Feelings of anxiety, irritability, and sadness.

• Academic Performance: High levels of stress can impact concentration and productivity.

Activating our Calming System 

The good news is that there are strategies we can employ to help relieve the build up of stress. Check out the image below from the Take Space to Pause campaign to learn more about your stress response and how to activate your calming system to reduce stress and negative emotions.

Resources

Take Space to Pause - Learn the signs of stress, make a pause plan to lower stress, and more.

Stress Busters - 7 ways to manage stress

Live Beyond - Understanding ACE's (Adverse Childhood Experiences), toxic stress, their effects on how we feel and act. Offers tools to parents and caregivers to reduce toxic stress.

Videos