Chances are that there has been a time in your life when you have felt stressed. Stress is commonly rooted in things like deadlines, worry about school work and grades, or a situation that puts you under a lot of pressure. Stress is a common and natural response to everyday pressures, but too much stress can have consequences.
Firstly, how does stress even work? The response to stress is commonly known as the fight or flight response. This is why when you are stressed, your heart rate increases, you start to feel nervous, and you tense up.
When you are in a stressful situation, your brain sends signals to your adrenal gland, which releases adrenaline, which is what fuels all the reactions that were listed above. If you are stuck in a big stressful incident, a common example would be if there is a car speeding towards you, then lots of adrenaline is released and your flight response makes you jump out of the way.
Too much homework usually leads to stress for students, though it is much less consequential than the situation in the last paragraph. However, experiencing this low level of stress too frequently can lead to symptoms of stress that can affect you and impact your daily life.
A very common one of these symptoms is a decrease in sleep and an increase or decrease in eating. Eighth grader student Kavin M. said that when he is stressed he sleeps and eats less. This symptom of sleeping and exercising less or eating more can also lead to obesity, another symptom of chronic stress.
Stress can also cause brain changes that can lead to depression, addiction, and anxiety. Anxiety can be caused by lots of stress or persistent worries. Anxiety has some similar symptoms of stress but also some more serious ones, which is why it is good to know how to combat stress before it gets to a stage of depression or anxiety.
There are numerous ways to relieve stress, but I’ll just recommend two in this article, as these two ways have worked for me and for other students as well.
The first strategy to relieve stress is doing something that soothes your mind and calms you down, such as Yoga.
“Yoga has helped me a lot with managing [stress],” said Kavin.
He gave lots of credit to the Yoga teacher, Austin Jenkins, for helping to guide him through stressful times through Yoga. Yoga helps to relieve stress by making you focus mentally and breathe deeply, which can get rid of the muscle tension and sped-up breathing associated with stress.
Another strategy is doing physical activity, which is a category Yoga also fits under. Getting exercise and playing sports is a great way to take your mind off whatever is stressing you out and to help stifle the reactions to stress.
In conclusion, students often feel stress due to feeling overwhelmed by schoolwork, and not knowing how to manage their stress can over time lead to some serious consequences. But stress isn’t always bad, and knowing how to have a healthy relationship with it can lead to a successful, fun, and healthy life.
