Stress plays a huge role in the mental health of students of all ages. A student’s academic record depends a lot on their mental outlook. There are many things that can cause stress, and schools need to get better at finding ways to assist kids in relieving that stress.
“I don’t think I could ever fully relieve my stress at school,” Emelia Kay Inslee said.
Schools need to be better about taking into account the stress kids go through day to day. Today, at 83%, according to an article on Psycom, school has been proven to be the number one cause of stress in teenagers. While it is normal for kids to feel stressed and overwhelmed with school, there comes a point where the stress takes away from your academic ability.
When stress levels build to a certain point, they can develop into toxic stress. Toxic stress has long-lasting effects on kids that can scar the social-emotional, behavioral, and physical aspects of their health.
45%, according to an article on Cross River Therapy, of high school students admitted to being stressed out during the school day almost every day of the week. Then they said on the weekends, the stress returns with the thought of school.
“I get too anxious to even be able to do my work,” Hannah Cutberth said.
The specific type of stress that is triggered by school is school-induced stress. Which is most often reported by high school students. School is very mentally tiring for kids, which leads to mental exhaustion. Mental exhaustion happens when the brain gets overstimulated or is required to keep up with an intense level of activity without rest.
People who have reached the stage of mental exhaustion often cannot maintain a healthy balance between school and life.
This unhealthy imbalance begins to cause things like lack of motivation, resentment, elevated stress levels, severe anxiety, and no longer having the ability to perform at normal levels.
This mental state not only affects students’ overall ability to perform but also affects their mood and personality. Kids will oftentimes become overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, which will ultimately alter their personality.
While mental exhaustion is a serious topic, school alone does not cause it. There are many things that can contribute to being mentally exhausted, including poor self-esteem, chronic stress, family issues and emotional stress.
All of these things can create mental exhaustion over time. Even though there are other contributors to mental issues and stress, school is the main recurring problem.
“Everything seems to be a stressor nowadays,” Inslee said.
Not only does stress affect a student’s ability to learn and focus in school, but it is also the main reason why kids choose to drop out of school. Coming in at 55%, emotional stress was the main factor as to why kids want to drop out of school and go online.
61%, according to Cross River Therapy, of students’ main stressor, comes from the fear of underachievement. Students between the ages of 13 and 17 admitted to being most stressed about producing satisfactory grades.
“There is too much work, and it makes my anxiety and stress go way up, and school gives me too much stuff to do at home, adding to the stress,” junior Jake Jovick said.
By the end of a long school day, which lasts roughly 6 hours, students’ brains are slowly shutting down. The brain takes in so much information during a school day that by the end of the day, the brain is unable to function properly without a long break. This makes it difficult for kids who play sports or do extracurricular activities. They not only have to worry about the homework they will have later that night, but also their sport or activity. This makes it difficult for students to perform highly in sports and get good grades on homework assignments.
Once kids finish these activities and assignments, it is likely to be late at night, considering sports, on average, go anywhere from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The amount of homework given to kids at school causes stress to skyrocket. Kids look forward to going home after school and being able to relax, but with the amount of homework given, the stress only extends to after school. This takes a huge toll on students’ health, not only mentally but also physically. The combination of late nights doing homework and waking up early for school causes severe sleep deprivation.
Experts say that kids between the ages of 13 and 18 require at least 8-10 hours of sleep every night to be able to perform to their best academic ability. On average, teens can only receive seven hours of sleep per night. This causes teens to be groggy and tired while at school, making it harder for them to attain the information needed for classes.
When kids don’t get enough sleep, that becomes a huge stress factor.
Academics aren’t the only thing that is stressful for kids at school. There are also factors like drama and peer pressure. With social media becoming more prominent all over the world, it only makes kids feel the need to fit in more. Kids these days are more worried about being liked by their peers and fitting in than they are about the overall schoolwork. This poses a huge problem for the school system because when kids stress about fitting in, they begin to care less about what is being taught and more about how they look or dress.
“The only thing that has really affected me was people talking about people,” Inslee said. “I hate drama and having to listen to it all the time. It gets old and annoying.”
Stress produced by school is a huge problem, and usually, kids have no way of relieving it. Students get stressed at school and feel like they don’t have a way to let it out.
