How High School Students Cope With Their Stress

How High School Students Cope with Their Stress
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How High School Students Cope with Their Stress
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The role of stress in a teenage student's life has become more pronounced in the modern age of technology, where high competitive environment forces young students to outperform others in curricular and extracurricular activities (Bauld, 2022). The only effective way to understand this stress level, analyze its underlying causes and identify different stress coping mechanisms of teenagers is the direct first-hand Observation and face-to-face interviews with students and mentors. This method helps in understanding learners' perspectives toward stress and stress management (The following section discusses the results of my direct Observation and two semi-structured interviews and provides significant insight regarding teenagers' different stress-coping mechanisms. Surprisingly, both mentor's and high school students' responses imply similar attitudes toward stress, with the only variable being gender.
Mentors' Response toward Stress
Both male and female mentors admit that facing stress is a routine part of their student life, and they deemed academic competition, peer pressure, and bullying to be everyday stressors in teenage students' life. Scholars are generally unanimous regarding stress's role in student life as they deem peer pressures, academic challenges, body changes, and family issues as the core cause of stress in this phase of life (AACAP, 2019). In this regard, all four interviewees responded favorably regarding the role of exercise in releasing stress during their schooling. For instance, one male mentor expresses his enthusiasm for exercise in the following way: "Exercise worked wonders for me during my stressful years as a high school student; early morning exercise and a leisurely walk helped me a lot in easing out exam tensions and apprehensions about fulfilling my parents' and teachers' expectations." Another respondent regarded exercise as "the best thing since sliced bread," These comments put extraordinary significance on using exercise for getting rid of mental stress and maintain physical fitness.
Appropriate music's role in easing hyperactive nerves is an evident reality that is biologically verifiable. For instance, upbeat music makes a person more energetic and positive toward life challenges; slow music relaxes the mind and soul and eases muscular movement (University of Nevada, 2023). Three of the four mentors strongly agreed to the positive role of music in relieving stress, while one female mentor showed concern over the detrimental effects of its too much use, although she admitted its short-term benefits. Regarding meditation, the interviewees responded positively as they admitted to using meditation to cope with academic stress. However, one male mentor stressed keeping a journal to give vent to his frustrations, anxieties, and stresses; he expresses his support for this strategy in the following way: "Expressing my inner fears, worries, and feelings in a journal has always helped me shun negative feelings and unburden myself from baseless problems, especially those rela...