Stress: A Student’s Strain
Back in the times of our distant ancestors, the only real thing to stress about was dying. Nowadays, there are so many things to stress about, though, not as severe as that of death, but enough to cause constant stress. And this constant stress can drive some teens to the breaking point and sometimes, unfortunately, to the point of suicide. While there is good stress, too, being under any sort of stress, for an extended amount of time, is dangerous to one’s physical health. Not to mention how it can basically deteriorate one’s mind. And people need to acknowledge that teens are often under tremendous amounts of stress and that it’s quite unsafe for them.
First off, there is good stress. But it’s very different from the more commonly depicted stress. In general, stress is just a burst of energy to help you get things done. In minute amounts, stress will be able to help you accomplish goals. It makes you work more efficiently. Stress pumps the body full of chemicals like epinephrine, norepinephrine and …show more content…
When undergoing stressful situations, as Dr. Daniel Goleman put it, it “makes us stupid.” It shuts down the area of the brain responsible for thinking, the prefrontal cortex, in order to focus on surviving the situation. However, in modern times, life or death situations don’t come up all that often, so shutting down the prefrontal cortex doesn’t really do much good. In the often-stressed student, this means that much of their work is done with a brain that is functioning on subpar levels. Not only this, but chronic stress winds up killing brain cells and shrinking the parts of the brain needed for thinking and learning, like the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. All the while, the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for responding to threats, gets even bigger and starts working overtime. Essentially digging you deeper and deeper into a pit of
Back in the times of our distant ancestors, the only real thing to stress about was dying. Nowadays, there are so many things to stress about, though, not as severe as that of death, but enough to cause constant stress. And this constant stress can drive some teens to the breaking point and sometimes, unfortunately, to the point of suicide. While there is good stress, too, being under any sort of stress, for an extended amount of time, is dangerous to one’s physical health. Not to mention how it can basically deteriorate one’s mind. And people need to acknowledge that teens are often under tremendous amounts of stress and that it’s quite unsafe for them.
First off, there is good stress. But it’s very different from the more commonly depicted stress. In general, stress is just a burst of energy to help you get things done. In minute amounts, stress will be able to help you accomplish goals. It makes you work more efficiently. Stress pumps the body full of chemicals like epinephrine, norepinephrine and …show more content…
When undergoing stressful situations, as Dr. Daniel Goleman put it, it “makes us stupid.” It shuts down the area of the brain responsible for thinking, the prefrontal cortex, in order to focus on surviving the situation. However, in modern times, life or death situations don’t come up all that often, so shutting down the prefrontal cortex doesn’t really do much good. In the often-stressed student, this means that much of their work is done with a brain that is functioning on subpar levels. Not only this, but chronic stress winds up killing brain cells and shrinking the parts of the brain needed for thinking and learning, like the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. All the while, the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for responding to threats, gets even bigger and starts working overtime. Essentially digging you deeper and deeper into a pit of