Today I am going to look into how the involvement of increased childhood stress has played a role in the developing mental health crisis in America.
It is no surprise to hear that teens today experience more stress than ever before, and even report higher stress than adults when both are self reported.
Most adults will immediately jump to social media for the cause, or maybe that teens are simply more emotional. Both are true, but there is much more to it than just these causes.
First, let’s look at the pressure teens receive today. We are taught from the age of 10 the importance of academic success, extracurricular activity, and accolades. We are taught that this is how we will be happy in the future. The pressure to succeed in all facets of academica is tremendous in today’s day in age, especially compared to past generations.
Highschoolers are having 7-8 hours of school, followed by 2-3 hours of extracurricular, then 2-4 hours of homework. The stress this puts on a developing teen is tremendous, and most importantly it is overwhelming. Feelings of overwhelming emotion is one of the main causes for depression and mental health issues, as it distorts the person’s view of the future.
Even further are the impacts this stress has on other facets of life. Increased stress decreases the likelihood of beneficial sleep, exercise, and a healthy diet. All of which are crucial to good mental health.
We need to break the stigma of the connection between happiness and academic success. While we all want our children to succeed, we do not want them to suffer for it.
We need to emphasize the importance of a work life balance. Create time to do extracirruclar and focus on academics, but also find time to learn about yourself, relax, and be a kid.
The real problem is prolonged or chronic stress. Only 16% of teens reported a decrease in stress over the past year. As chronic stress has been proven over and over again to be strongly linked with mental illness.
While it is hard to eliminate stress, we can help teens and expose then to better ways of coping. The lack of useful coping of stress only increases that correlation with other mental illnesses.
Get outside, create an exercise routine, bond with a pet, limit alcohol and stimulants, or call a loved one. Getting in a routine of this can show huge improvements in mental health.
Have a great day! And take a deep breath!.
I think it is true that today’s teens and young adults are more likely to have poor mental health compared to older generations. However, I also think there is a reporting bias due to the cultural differences. Teens and young adults grow up in a society more accepting of mental health issues, so are more likely to report their own than older generations. I don’t mean to downplay the issues faced by our generation, however. Social media and pressure to prepare for the future are problems we face that other generations have not faced on the same scale. We might not be able to solve these problems for our own generation, but we may be able to ease the pressures on future ones.
I do believe that there are alot of expectations set on us teenagers (younger and older) to lead a balanced life and succeed in all aspects of our daily life. These type of expectations truly puts a heavy mental toll on teenagers that the slightest inconvenience can have a big negative impact on their general health. Despite how the media portrays the importance of success and to maintain a balanced life, the well being on the teenager can be determined by the type of environment that they grew up in and were raised in. It is important for the parents to set a good example and use a good attitude when trying to help their young ones to build their life. I personally saw that depending how the people around the teenager labeled success and how manage or cope with what throws at the them the teenager can soon learn how to manage their stress and work load in a healthy manner.