Imagine having an immense amount of stress in your life that you start getting throbbing headaches, muscle pain and insomnia on a daily basis. You feel as if you can’t function properly with an overwhelmed mind. This is stress. 

Stress is a common factor in everyone's lives, especially students. Prolonged amounts of stress have proven to be harmful for people’s mental health, specifically in children and teens. However, finding the right stress management skills for adolescents could largely impact daily lives and wellbeing of others, decreasing the likelihood of mental and psychological disorders. 

What is Stress? 

Stress is an emotional, physical or mental response to when our bodies feel under pressure or somehow threatened. These responses are a way to help people cope with uncontrollable situations. While a little bit of stress is proven to be beneficial, by giving the mind motivation and a boost of energy before certain occasions, there is a fine line between a good and bad amount of stress. 

Stress can be a short-term reaction, such as being worried about an upcoming event, or it could be a symptom of a mental health disorder, like anxiety and depression. Stress also comes with physical effects. Too much stress over a long period of time (also known as chronic stress) can lead to health diseases, including hypertension, heart disease and insomnia (Felman, 2023). 

Stress in Students 

Stress in students is becoming increasingly more common, and not just in college students. Academic stress is seen to start in students from the age of 13 - this is notably when middle school starts. There are many factors in childrens’ lives that lead towards stress; the most significant one seen in almost all case studies is academic pressure. Academic pressure and stress is the need for a student to do well in school and extracurricular activities that are related to their education, such as being on a sports team, tutoring and overall good grades. According to a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association, 83% of adolescents were pressured from school, making it the biggest cause of the pressure on students. (APA, 2017). 

Whether the stress is internal or external, caused by others around us or our environment, everyone experiences it. 

Stress Management

Managing stress is vital, especially for students and is a skill many children should learn. An article written by Harvard explains that stress management techniques should be a part of everyone’s daily routine (Reynolds, 2022). 

Stress management provides us with a variety of alternatives to reset and adjust our system, as well as benefit both our body and mind in terms of development. Without implementing these techniques into our lives, our bodies will constantly be alert. This type of chronic stress could result in major medical conditions over the course of time.  A research fellow at Harvard’s Weisz Lab for Youth Mental Health, Sakshi Khurana, says that the most helpful stress management techniques include, getting exercise, sleeping enough, meditation, a good diet, and journaling our stresses (Khurana, 2022). 

Experiment Results 

To support my research on this topic, I conducted an experiment for students in my school aged 11-14 about their stress management practices. I asked them to complete a survey over a span of 4-5 days where each one took part in one type of stress management technique. These include taking time for hobbies, sleep, exercise and journaling. 

The results of this experiment showed that incorporating a stress management technique into our daily routine is beneficial to our mental well-being. Out of 17 responses, 16 said they found their practice helpful and enjoyable to their stress levels, and with each day, their stress rating lowered. The techniques that showed to have worked the best in managing stress is exercising and getting the recommended amount of sleep. When rating their stress levels, the subjects’ answer out of 10 was lowered by one to two each day. This then supports the literature that I have read prior to the experiment.

In conclusion, stress and academic pressure is a very common aspect of every students’ life but it is important to understand how to control and manage it. According to the data I have gathered from my experiment, getting enough exercise and sleep on a regular basis lowers student stress levels and will best improve their overall mental and physical health. 

As students, we can begin using these recommended stress management practices so we can be empowered to navigate the challenges of our academic and personal lives with resilience and well-being.

Works Cited

• Elizabeth Scott, PhD. “Top 10 Stress Management Techniques for Students.” Verywell Mind, 2023, www.verywellmind.com/top-school-stress-relievers-for-students-3145179.  

• Reynolds, Pamela. “Managing Stress in High School.” Harvard Summer School, Harvard Division of Continuing Education, 10 Nov. 2022, summer.harvard.edu/blog/managing-stress-in-high-school/.

• Smith, Jemma. “5 Ways to Manage Student Stress | Prospects.ac.uk.” Prospects.ac.uk, Prospects, 2019, www.prospects.ac.uk/applying-for-university/university-life/5-ways-to-manage-student-stress.

• “Student Health Service - Stress Management.” Www.studenthealth.gov.hk, www.studenthealth.gov.hk/english/health/health_ph/health_ph_stress.html.

• “Coping with Stress.” Www.student.unsw.edu.au, www.student.unsw.edu.au/stress.

• Alvord, Mary, and Raquel Halfond. “How to Help Children and Teens Manage Their Stress.” Apa.org, American Psychological Association, 24 Oct. 2019, www.apa.org/topics/children/stress.

• “Stress: Why Does It Happen and How Can We Manage It?” Www.medicalnewstoday.com, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145855#management.