Stress Its Impact on Teens
i’m sure
many of you have heard your parents say
you have it
so easy well in my day we had to do this
or that and while certain aspects of
what they say
may be true there has also been a lot of
changes in today’s society
that have caused many problems with
these problems
and former problems faced by every
previous generation
there’s bound to be loads of stress
well stress is a pretty broad term
because there’s so many different
variables that could cause it a
straightforward way of putting it is the
body
reacting to challenge or demand
once again this definition is
oversimplified because of the many ways
stress can be caught
caused but i still like it because it
shows that
stress doesn’t just affect the mentality
it can affect someone physically in many
ways
which i’ll touch upon later throughout
this i’ll be talking about the causes of
stress
how stress affects teenagers differently
and what society can do as a whole to
help
so what are the causes of stress well
you can take into consideration
home environment school technology
relationships overthinking and this
applies to
all agents ages while an adult is
worried about their child
an adolescent could be wondering how can
i get out of a household
while an adult is wondering how to get
out of a financial situation
an adolescent could be wondering if they
have enough money for a certain item
the two situations may seem vastly
different
but they can actually have the same
mental drain
the reason being from the ages from 13
to 25
there’s so many different changes in the
body and in the mind
one of these includes the amygdala which
is the part of the brain that
deals with emotions during these years
it becomes
hyperactive and gives false alarms to
even the smallest of
inconveniences this is why certain
people are stressed and have different
emotions when
they don’t even know why personally i’m
not a very busy person
i practice my instrument i try to do
good in school
and i try to have time for myself which
i’m sure many other people do
so when i have time for myself i try not
to think about anything else maybe any
problems
any work i have however even if i don’t
have any of these things
i’m still thinking if i haven’t done
something or if i’ve done something
wrong so when i take into consideration
what other people have to put up with
with their home environment school maybe
after school activities
it must be so overwhelming we’re always
so focused on our future and our
problems that we rarely ever have time
for ourselves
something else to consider is we’re just
going into the phases
of adulthood an adult has had their
entire life to experience
problems when we may have not seen the
worst parts of life
so once we face a problem we think
it’s the worst it’s gonna get we can’t
get out of the situation when that
simply
isn’t true adults need to realize that
even though our situations may seem
small
our developing mind tells us that
they’re much greater
that’s the cause for some of our
overwhelming stress
distress can affect people in many
different ways
this includes physical first let me get
into the science of how stress can
affect a person physically
when a person is stressed their muscles
begin to tense up
and as the american psychological
association states
when muscles are tensed up for a
prolonged period of time it can cause
many stray
stress related disorders this includes
low energy headaches body aches
skin issues insomnia according to webmd
this low energy can cause people not to
get out of bed
we don’t have energy to do the things
that we need to do
or even the things that we enjoy doing
it turns into a cycle being stressed
not having energy not doing work and now
being stressed about the work that you
aren’t doing
the cycle possibly never ends and over
time this can affect
the mental health
depression behavioral changes and
anxiety
are all mental effects of stress
according to the mental health
foundation this can lead to 24 days
or around three and a half weeks of work
loss for every person affected
each year when the stress of work
causes a lack of work isn’t there a
problem
especially at a younger age with your
priorities surrounding
problems deadlines tests the amount of
work we put
into stuff with no return except some
people having anxiety
or some even depression doesn’t seem
worth it once again you have to take
into consideration
that depression due to stress in teens
is
very high this depression could lead to
the
thoughts or even the act of suicide
according to pmc over 50 percent
of suicidal attempts in teenagers are
impulsive meaning from the initial
thought
to the acts maybe there wasn’t a plan
there was only a couple of
minutes to even hours
if the amount of stress in adolescence
remains the same
or increases the amount of lives
affected could be
drastic that’s why there needs to be
change
we know that schools won’t lower the
amount of work given out
and we know that adults won’t lower the
expectations for our future
changes won’t happen in both of these
for a very long time
so in the meantime what do we do one
solution
which sounds cheesy and overused is
talking to someone it doesn’t have to be
an adult like a teacher
your parents or a counselor glacier
stated
studies have shown that talking to
someone about your problems
can be profoundly healing reducing
stress
improving our immune system and reducing
physical and emotional distress
i can actually say this is true because
when i was in middle school i was
very overwhelmed and anxious because i
don’t like new things or change
over time i developed a condition called
stress-induced bell’s palsy
i wasn’t really talking to anyone about
my problems but
once i did it really helped this leads
me to my next point
ensuring we are there for others
we don’t have to give people advice we
don’t need to fix their problems
we just need to listen because sometimes
that’s all that’s needed lastly
we have to fix the problem ourselves we
see the decisions that are being made
aren’t always
positively impacting us so once we’re
adults we’ll be able to reflect off of
our past and remember what
we wanted since no one is going to help
us
we have to help ourselves thank you