Stress In Teens’ Everyday Life: Sources And Ways To Avoid

Everyone is attacked by stressors and has stress reactions on a daily basis, but stress and stress responses are not necessarily negative events. They can be what encourages and gives us the energy to excel and or meet our goals if used productively. The teen years can be particularly stressful. The key is to recognize your stressors and learn to control stress and use it productively. “Stress continues to be a top health concern for U. S. teens, says a survey in 2017 from the American Psychological Association (APA). On a 10-point scale of stress levels, teens rated their stress at 5. 8. Adults who took the same survey rated their stress levels at 5. 1. According to the APA, teens like you ‘report feeling overwhelmed (31 percent) and depressed or sad (30 percent) as a result of stress’”. “Teen stressors can be placed into five categories, but these three relate to you: stressors caused by family issues, peer pressure stressors, and stressors created by violent acts”.

Family stressors can create many difficulties in the lives of teens. Violence and conflicts with parents are among the family-related stressors that some teens deal with. Teens have had conflicts with their parents since the dawn of time. Many of these conflicts occur because teens are pushing for more freedom, one of the first steps in the long march to maturity. Conflicts arise when teens want more freedom than their parents feel they can handle. Teens frequently ignore the rules or actively rebel against them. “The teen years are a time of major life crises. You are experiencing physical changes that are stressful, developing your own beliefs and values, and developing relationships that may be long-lasting. You have endless demands on your time and are bombarded by new challenges every day. As you have seen, there are many contributing factors to stress and several negative ways to deal with stress that often only compound our stress. Perhaps some of the positive coping mechanisms presented here will prove to be helpful”.

Underlying all of these is one recurring theme — you are not alone. Regardless of what your stressors are and how hopeless things may seem, talking with someone will help.

1. Define the Problem. Making plans to deal with stress is difficult if you don’t know what is causing it. Spend several days jotting down things that cause you stress. Then, make a definitive list of your major stressors. Recognizing a stressor may actually make it less stressful.
2. Learn to Say No. Most people agree to do a lot of things they really don’t want to do simply because they think they should. Some of these are unavoidable, especially those that your parents ask you to do, but others are not. Rather than agreeing immediately, think about your motivation for doing so. If you really have no time for it, say no.
3. Guard your time — no one else will. Admitting that you need help is the sign of a very strong person. When you have decided that you need help in dealing with a stressful situation, then you must decide whom to ask. You have to reach out and trust someone. “Consider your friends, parents or other family members. Real friends are people whose wisdom and judgment you value. They are people who tell you what you need to know, not what you want to know”. If you are scared, depressed, confused, or desperate to escape from a situation or habit that has gotten out of hand, choose a trusted friend who will be brutally honest with you. Your real friends will stick by you while you get the help you need.