stress among youth essay

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Stress And Its Effects On Youth Essay

Essay On Stress And Its Effects On Youth - Everyone experiences stress to some extent. By learning how to manage stress effectively, young people can improve their physical and mental health and achieve tremendous success in school and other areas of life. Here are 100, 200 and 500 word essays on ‘stress and its effects on youth’.

Stress is a feeling of pressure or tension when an individual is faced with demands or challenges they feel they cannot meet. A wide range of factors, such as work, relationships, financial issues, or health problems, causes stress. However, excessive or prolonged stress can negatively affect physical and mental health. Here are a few sample essays on "stress and its effects on youth".

100 Words Essay On Stress And Its Effects On Youth

Stress is a part of our daily life, but excessive stress can have adverse effects on physical and mental health, particularly in youth. Stress can lead to symptoms such as irritability, difficulty concentrating, and difficulty sleeping, which can all impact academic performance. It can also lead to physical symptoms such as stomach pain, headache, and chest pain.

It is crucial for youth to find healthy ways to cope with stress, such as exercise, meditation, and talking to a trusted friend or family member, or a therapist. It is also important for adults to recognise the signs of stress in youth and offer support and guidance to help them manage it effectively. By addressing stress early on, we can help youth build resilience and better cope with life's challenges.

200 Words Essay On Stress And Its Effects On Youth

Stress is a very common part of daily life, and everyone experiences stress to some degree.

Stress And Youth

Youth are particularly vulnerable to stress because they are still developing both physically and emotionally.

Physical health problems | Stress can cause physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, and difficulty sleeping. It can also make the immune system vulnerable, making young people susceptible to illness.

Mental health problems | Stress can lead to various mental health complications, including anxiety, or depression. It can also interfere with concentration and learning, making it more difficult for young people to succeed academically.

Behavioural problems | Stress can lead to behavioural changes, including irritability, aggression, and difficulty with social interactions. This can create problems in relationships with family, friends, and peers.

Strategies To Manage Stress

Exercise | Doing Exercise releases chemicals in the brain called endorphins that help reduce anxiety and improve mood.

Relaxation techniques | Relaxation Methods such as deep breathing, meditation, and muscle relaxation can help to calm the mind and body.

Time management | Prioritising tasks and setting realistic goals can help to reduce stress by making it easier to manage time and responsibilities.

Social support | Having a strong network of supportive family and acquaintances can help to reduce stress by providing a sense of connection and belonging.

500 Words Essay On Stress And Its Effects On Youth

With the increasing pressure to excel in academics, sports, and extracurricular activities, it has become nearly impossible for young people to escape stress.

Physical Effects Of Stress On Youth

The physical effects of stress on youth can be severe and can lead to various health issues such as:

Headaches: Stress can cause tension headaches, which are often accompanied by neck and shoulder pain.

Insomnia: Stress can make it difficult for young people to fall asleep, leading to chronic insomnia and fatigue.

Digestive problems: Stress can lead to stomach pain, constipation, and diarrhoea.

Weakened immune system: Stress can weaken the immune system, making young people more prone to infections and illnesses.

Mental Effects Of Stress On Youth

The mental effects of stress on youth can lead to various mental health issues such as:

Stress can lead to feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness, which can eventually lead to depression.

Stress can cause feelings of worry and fear, leading to anxiety disorders.

Stress can affect a young person's ability to concentrate and remember things, leading to poor academic performance.

Stress can lead to negative self-perception and low self-esteem, affecting a young person's overall sense of self-worth.

Managing Stress In Youth

Here are some tips for managing stress in youth:

Exercise | Regular physical activity can help reduce stress and improve overall well-being.

Get enough sleep | Proper and peaceful sleep is essential for managing stress and maintaining good physical and mental health.

Practice relaxation techniques | Techniques like deep breathing, meditation, and yoga can help reduce stress and improve overall well-being.

Seek help | It is crucial for young people to seek help from parents, teachers, or mental health professionals if they feel overwhelmed by stress.

My Experience

I remember a time when I was under a lot of stress. I was in the last year of university education, and I had a lot of assignments and exams coming up. I was also working part-time and trying to balance everything. It felt like there wasn't enough time in the day to get everything done and I was constantly feeling overwhelmed.

I started to have trouble sleeping and found myself feeling anxious and irritable all the time. I knew something was wrong, and I needed to do something to manage my stress. Then I decided to seek therapy and decided to take some time for myself and focus on self-care. I started exercising regularly and made an effort to eat healthily and get enough sleep. I also made a list of all the things I needed to do and prioritised them so that I could focus on the most important tasks first.

It wasn't easy, but these small changes helped me manage my stress. I could feel more in control of my life. It's important to remember that it's okay to ask for help when you're feeling overwhelmed and to take care of yourself in times of stress.

Stress is a natural thing in our lives, and young people need to learn how to manage it. Following the tips mentioned above, young people can effectively manage their stress and lead happy and healthy lives.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

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Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Geotechnical engineer

The role of geotechnical engineer starts with reviewing the projects needed to define the required material properties. The work responsibilities are followed by a site investigation of rock, soil, fault distribution and bedrock properties on and below an area of interest. The investigation is aimed to improve the ground engineering design and determine their engineering properties that include how they will interact with, on or in a proposed construction. 

The role of geotechnical engineer in mining includes designing and determining the type of foundations, earthworks, and or pavement subgrades required for the intended man-made structures to be made. Geotechnical engineering jobs are involved in earthen and concrete dam construction projects, working under a range of normal and extreme loading conditions. 

Cartographer

How fascinating it is to represent the whole world on just a piece of paper or a sphere. With the help of maps, we are able to represent the real world on a much smaller scale. Individuals who opt for a career as a cartographer are those who make maps. But, cartography is not just limited to maps, it is about a mixture of art , science , and technology. As a cartographer, not only you will create maps but use various geodetic surveys and remote sensing systems to measure, analyse, and create different maps for political, cultural or educational purposes.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Product Manager

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Operations manager.

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Bank Probationary Officer (PO)

Investment director.

An investment director is a person who helps corporations and individuals manage their finances. They can help them develop a strategy to achieve their goals, including paying off debts and investing in the future. In addition, he or she can help individuals make informed decisions.

Welding Engineer

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Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

An expert in plumbing is aware of building regulations and safety standards and works to make sure these standards are upheld. Testing pipes for leakage using air pressure and other gauges, and also the ability to construct new pipe systems by cutting, fitting, measuring and threading pipes are some of the other more involved aspects of plumbing. Individuals in the plumber career path are self-employed or work for a small business employing less than ten people, though some might find working for larger entities or the government more desirable.

Construction Manager

Individuals who opt for a career as construction managers have a senior-level management role offered in construction firms. Responsibilities in the construction management career path are assigning tasks to workers, inspecting their work, and coordinating with other professionals including architects, subcontractors, and building services engineers.

Urban Planner

Urban Planning careers revolve around the idea of developing a plan to use the land optimally, without affecting the environment. Urban planning jobs are offered to those candidates who are skilled in making the right use of land to distribute the growing population, to create various communities. 

Urban planning careers come with the opportunity to make changes to the existing cities and towns. They identify various community needs and make short and long-term plans accordingly.

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Naval Architect

A Naval Architect is a professional who designs, produces and repairs safe and sea-worthy surfaces or underwater structures. A Naval Architect stays involved in creating and designing ships, ferries, submarines and yachts with implementation of various principles such as gravity, ideal hull form, buoyancy and stability. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Veterinary Doctor

Pathologist.

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Speech Therapist

Gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

Hospital Administrator

The hospital Administrator is in charge of organising and supervising the daily operations of medical services and facilities. This organising includes managing of organisation’s staff and its members in service, budgets, service reports, departmental reporting and taking reminders of patient care and services.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Videographer

Multimedia specialist.

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Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

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Essay on Stress and its Effects On Youth

Students are often asked to write an essay on Stress and its Effects On Youth in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Stress and its Effects On Youth

Understanding stress.

Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. It’s a reaction to a situation where a person feels threatened or anxious.

Stress in Youth

In youth, stress can come from school work, family issues, or even social situations. It’s a normal part of life, but too much can lead to problems.

Effects of Stress

Stress can cause headaches, sleep problems, and difficulty concentrating. It can also make a person feel angry, anxious, or depressed.

While stress is a part of life, it’s important to manage it. Healthy ways to cope include exercise, relaxation techniques, and talking to someone about your worries.

250 Words Essay on Stress and its Effects On Youth

Understanding stress in youth.

Stress, a ubiquitous part of life, is particularly impactful on the youth. The pressures of academia, social life, and personal development can often lead to overwhelming stress. Understanding the nature of stress and its effects on the youth is essential for fostering a healthier and more balanced society.

The Catalysts of Stress

The primary catalysts of stress in youth are multifaceted. Academic pressures, career uncertainties, and social expectations are common stressors. These stressors can lead to a constant feeling of anxiety and worry, which can be detrimental to both physical and mental health.

Physical and Psychological Impacts

Physically, chronic stress can lead to sleep disturbances, changes in appetite, and even weaken the immune system. Psychologically, it can lead to feelings of constant worry, irritability, and can increase the risk of mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Stress Management and Coping

Effective stress management and coping strategies are crucial. These can include regular physical exercise, mindfulness practices, and maintaining a balanced diet. Additionally, seeking professional help when needed is crucial in managing stress effectively.

In conclusion, stress in youth is a pressing issue. By understanding its causes and effects, and by implementing effective coping strategies, we can help mitigate its impact and ensure a healthier future for our youth.

500 Words Essay on Stress and its Effects On Youth

Introduction.

Stress, an inevitable part of life, has a profound impact on individuals, especially the youth. The modern world’s rapid pace and high expectations have led to an increase in stress levels among young people, affecting their health, academic performance, and overall well-being.

The Nature of Stress

Stress is a physiological response to challenging situations. It is the body’s way of reacting to a threat or challenge, often causing a surge of energy to deal with the situation. However, when stress becomes chronic, it can lead to several detrimental effects, particularly in youth who are still in their formative years.

Causes of Stress in Youth

The causes of stress in youth are multifaceted. Academic pressure, peer pressure, family issues, and societal expectations are among the leading stressors. The advent of social media has also introduced a new form of pressure, where the constant comparison with others can lead to feelings of inadequacy and stress.

Effects of Stress on Physical Health

Chronic stress can lead to a myriad of physical health problems. It can cause headaches, sleep disorders, and digestive problems. Moreover, it can lead to more serious conditions like heart disease and a weakened immune system. In youth, this can interfere with their growth and development.

Effects of Stress on Mental Health

Stress can also have severe implications for mental health. It can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health disorders. Among youth, this can result in decreased academic performance, social withdrawal, and even suicidal thoughts.

Stress and Behaviour

Behavioural changes are another significant impact of stress. Stress can lead to changes in eating and sleeping patterns, increased use of alcohol and drugs, and withdrawal from normal activities. These behavioural changes can further exacerbate the negative effects of stress.

Managing Stress

Effective stress management is crucial to mitigate these effects. This can include techniques such as regular exercise, adequate sleep, healthy eating, and mindfulness practices. It’s also important to seek professional help when needed. Schools and colleges should also play a significant role in providing mental health support and creating an environment that reduces stress.

In conclusion, the effects of stress on youth are far-reaching, affecting their physical health, mental well-being, and behaviour. It is therefore essential to understand the causes and effects of stress to develop effective strategies for managing it. By doing so, we can ensure that our youth can navigate the challenges of the modern world with resilience and equanimity.

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Stress And Its Effects On Young People (Essay Sample)

Table of Contents

Stress and its effects on young people today

Stress can be defined as any change that triggers emotional, physical, or mental strain. Stress is in fact the body’s natural response to any unpleasant experience that requires one’s attention. People generally believe that stress only affects adults who have bills to pay and families to look after but that’s not at all true.  Children, preteens, teens, and even toddlers experience stress in different forms.

Generally, anything that causes fear and anxiety can cause stress. Usual causes of stress in children and teens include being away from home, moving to a new place, mismanagement of time, and getting along with other peers.

EssayBasics provides essay writing services for both children and students. They provide both long and short essays ranging from 150 words to 500 words and more. Hit the order button right now to get your own plagiarism-free stress and its effect on young people’s essays.

Good Stress vs Bad Stress

This might sound strange but there are both negative and positive effects of stress. Everyone wants to wake up to the sweet smell of roses and bright sunshine without facing a single stressor in life but we all know it’s not possible. While most of the time stress can be devastating it’s also ironic that people feel the most energetic and prolific when they are under pressure.

Well, we all are familiar with what bad stress is and what it can do to us, here are some insights about the positive effects of good stress.

• Experiencing stress from similar situations can train you to deal with those problems like a pro. Thus stress from similar situations makes you stronger.
• Research has shown that moderate stress can boost the brain’s performance. It’s because moderate stress strengthens the connection between neurons which improves attention and memory functions.

Almost all students groan at the mention of homework but for some students, homework is more than just a nuisance. The ones who fail to cope with loads of school work every day fall easy prey to teen stress. According to a recent study which surveyed 4300 students from both public and private schools to help determine the effect of school work on high school students, it was found that:

• Homework is the main cause of ulcers, migraines, sleeplessness, and weight loss in young school-going students.
• 56% of students in the study were of the view that too much schoolwork is the main reason for stress, both in and out of their schools.

While all students may groan at the mention of homework, it may be more than just a nuisance for children and teens who fail to cope with loads of classwork every day. Among all other causes of stress, this essay on stress and its effects on the youth will highlight problems that are caused by excessive schoolwork as it is the biggest cause of teenage stress, stress among youth, and chronic stress.

To better understand the effects of stress we must first learn about its causes through this stress and its effects on youth essay.

Causes of Stress in Children, Teens and University Students

According to the latest research study, 1 in 6 young students experiences stress and anxiety at some point in their lives. These stress effects on youth lead to symptoms of depression. Following are some of the most basic causes of stress in today’s generation.

• Too much schoolwork is by far the most notable cause of stress among youth. Not getting enough time for play and other healthy activities can lead to continued tension.
• Peer pressure and not being accepted in a social circle by friends and relatives also increase stress levels.
• Failing a test, getting a lower grade, or not being able to come up to parents’ expectations can also make young people feel stressed.
• College students who are forced to read many books overwork themselves by studying day and night to come up with academic essays and complete assignments.

School counselor Joy Holt who teaches in Harrisburg, Arkansas, reported that younger kids and children also feel pressured and stressed. Among her elementary students, she sees that young kids are terrified of failing tests. “The little ones also know how important tests are, and they never want to fail,” Joy says in an interview. Even the little kids cry out loud, get sick and even throw up on their booklets when they are stressed , she adds.

Effects of Stress on Youth and University Students

Many young people usually find destructive ways to eliminate stress. With one in 15 teenagers using harmful ways to cope with stress. Experts believe that many college and university students indulge in unhealthy activities to relieve academic stress. Many students usually find a safe haven in one of the following activities to relieve stress:

Stress-Eating

Stress eating is a disorder that almost affects everyone. It’s also a symptom that lets the family members know their kid is continuously going through stressful situations.

Stress eating can lead to weight gain that further leads youth to face critical health problems in life. 

Drugs Usage

Once teens enter high school they are bombarded with challenges of getting good grades, performing well in extracurriculars, and progressing in social life.  Not performing up to expectations lead to physical and mental health problems. In order to suppress the symptoms of depression and anxiety teens often start to abuse drugs to minimize symptoms.

Violence and Aggression

Many adolescents and teens resort to violence and become more aggressive towards their peers, parents, and teachers. They start doing crazy things and even start committing crimes to relieve stress.

Sleeping Problems

Many teens start experiencing sleeping problems because of continued stress. Sleep deprivation adds to their problems and hinders their ability to work to the best of their ability hence leading to serious health problems.

In Some Cases: Suicide!

Continued stress, anxiety, and episodes of extreme depression can stack up leading to cases of suicide. poor coping skills, academic stress, regular drug usage, and lack of support are the main causes of suicide in teenagers.

High Blood Pressure in Young People

Continuously dealing with stressful situations lead to hypertension. Hypertension in teens then leads to heart disease and high blood pressure.

Youth needs to understand that physical and mental well-being is more important than getting good grades. They need to be educated about how to practice good time management, start healthy social relationships, do stress management, and manage work deadlines.

On the other hand, teachers need to understand that the quality of schoolwork assignments matters more than the quantity. They need to know that students can still learn challenging skills even when too much homework is not given to them.

FAQ on Stress and its Effects on Young People Essay

Question 1: how does stress affect the youth.

Excess homework is by far the most common cause of stress among youth. Other common causes of stress among children, teens, and adolescents include being away from home, moving to a new place, time miss management, and trouble getting along with peers.

Q2: What IS stress and its effects?

Any change that triggers emotional, physical, or mental strain can be defined as stress. Stress has both positive and negative effects however the negative ones overwhelm the positive effects.

Q3: What are the main causes of stress for today’s youth?

Fear of being left behind, not being socially accepted by others, failing to cope with loads of homework are common causes of stress among youth.

Q4: How to write an essay on stress among youth?

Start by introducing stress and how it affects youth then discuss its common causes in the body and end the essay by discussing the effects and how to better cope with stressful situations. 

References:

• https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/stress.html
• https://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/21/health/homework-stress/index.html
• https://news.berkeley.edu/2013/04/16/researchers-find-out-why-some-stress-is-good-for-you/

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Article Contents

Introduction, three paradigms of stress research, complex pathways, acknowledgements.

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Stress and adolescent well-being: the need for an interdisciplinary framework

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Inga Dora Sigfusdottir, Alfgeir Logi Kristjansson, Thorolfur Thorlindsson, John P Allegrante, Stress and adolescent well-being: the need for an interdisciplinary framework, Health Promotion International , Volume 32, Issue 6, December 2017, Pages 1081–1090, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daw038

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Stress and strain among adolescents have been investigated and discussed largely within three separate disciplines: mental health, where the focus has been on the negative effects of stress on emotional health; criminology, where the emphasis has been on the effects of strain on delinquency; and biology, where the focus has been to understand the effects of stress on physiology. Recently, scholars have called for increased multilevel developmental analyses of the bio-psychosocial nature of risk and protection for behaviors of individuals. This paper draws on several different but converging theoretical perspectives in an attempt to provide an overview of research relevant to stress in adolescence and puts forth a new framework that aims to provide both a common language and consilience by which future research can analyze the effects of multiple biological, social and environmental factors experienced during specific developmental periods, and cumulatively over time, on harmful behavior during adolescence. We present a framework to examine the effects of stress on diverse behavioral outcomes among adolescents, including substance use, suicidal behavior, self-inflicted harm, and delinquency.

Adolescent substance use, self-harm, suicides and delinquency are large-scale problems in most economically advanced societies and of growing concern in developing countries. According to the most recent United Nations drug report, almost one-quarter of a billion people used illicit drugs in 2013 ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2015 ). Around 1 in 10 of these users will become addicted, but drug abuse kills around 200 000 people worldwide each year ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2015 ). In this context, it is important to note that most drug abusers initiate their use during adolescence ( Sigfusdottir et al. , 2009 ). According to Selfharm UK, it is thought that as many as 13% of young people between the ages of 11 and 16 may intentionally try to hurt themselves at some point ( Selfharm UK, 2015 ). New figures published in 2014 suggested a 70% increase in 10–14 year olds attending accident and emergency hospital departments for self-harm-related reasons over the preceding 2 years ( Selfharm UK, 2015 ). In addition, both substance abuse and self-inflicted harm are positively related to delinquent behaviors such as engaging in stealing, vandalism and violence ( Hirschi, 1969 ; Agnew, 2006 ). All these behavioral problems are also positively related to a host of additional issues in adolescents such as depressed mood ( Mann et al. , 2014 ) and increased risk of school drop-out ( Kristjansson et al. , 2008 ). Without attempting to mitigate the above-mentioned harmful behaviors, of an even graver concern are suicides, which have increased by 60% worldwide during the last four decades and are now among the three leading causes of death in this age group ( Wasserman et al ., 2005 ; www.Suicide.org ).

Often, these problems arise when young people experience major stress in their lives and/or are the result of being born into adverse circumstances. Although quite a lot is known about the effects of stress, there are still major gaps in our knowledge, especially in relation to how stress affects physiological and emotional reactions, and harmful behavior. An important reason for this lack of understanding is the fact that studies of the social environment and human biology have developed largely as independent scientific disciplines. Currently, there is an emerging consensus that integrating factors at multiple biological and social levels is necessary in order to further our knowledge of human health and behavior ( D'Onorfio and Lahey, 2010 ). It is, however, not an easy task to overcome the current disciplinary-based paradigms that are deeply rooted in the organizations of universities, funding agencies, and science policies. Often, studies that concern closely related topics, have developed along the lines of independent scientific disciplines in separate or even parallel ways, using different terminology for similar issues. An example of this can be found in public health and the lack of explicit theoretical and methodological linkages that exist between the disciplines of epidemiology and criminology in their work with marginalized populations ( Akers and Lanier, 2009 ). The concepts with which the two disciplines work essentially have the same meaning but are addressed differently within the disciplines; more theoretically within criminology, and more practically within public health. Research on the important topic of stress is another good example of this. Various disciplines have identified stress as a key variable in relation to health and social problems. We do, however, lack research that brings together knowledge from the various scientific disciplines in a coherent study on stress. One reason for this is the divide between social sciences that focus predominantly on the social environment and behaviors and the natural sciences that concern the human body and biology. We simply do not have the kind of studies that include both refined measurement of social contexts and sophisticated measurement of biological processes that are relevant to understanding specific health problems. Only recently, in part because of the emergence of new technologies, have behavioral scientists begun to think simultaneously about the relevant social and biological mechanisms in the context of an integrated, multilevel developmental analytic framework in order to understand the processes and pathways through which the environment, social circumstances and biology interact to influence healthy adolescent development. As Cullen ( Cullen, 2011) points out, social scientists can no longer pretend that biology is not a part of human behavior and thus an important part of harmful behavior. At the same time, we no longer need to fear that combining biology and social data will lead to ‘blaming the victim’, social engineering or biological reductionism. Ever since the human genome was sequenced in 2001, we have become more aware of the fact that the link between biology and environment is much more complex than we had thought. Studies have, for example, shown that increased maternal care given to rat pups permanently enhances the expression of a certain gene in areas of the brain that eventually affect the ways the animals react to stress ( Francis, 1999 ; Weaver et al. , 2004 ). These studies have provided us with evidence that we have moved beyond the nature–nurture conundrum. We now know that just as our environment is potentially modifiable, our biology is flexible, and may be largely dependent on social processes, and that the two work in tandem to shape the individual and the life course ( Rafter, 2008 ). In line with that, Francis and Kaufer ( Francis and Kaufer, 2011) recently argued that we should finally abandon the nature versus nurture debate and focus on understanding the mechanisms through which our biology and environments are intertwined and affect each other throughout people's lives.

In this paper, we propose a multilevel developmental framework that we believe can be used to examine the influence of stress factors on diverse behavioral outcomes among adolescents, including substance use, suicidal behavior, self-inflicted harm and delinquency. Drawing on biological, social and health theories, as well as plethora of research on the effects of stress on physiology, emotions and behavior, we put forth a framework that brings together three different paradigms. We describe the effects of multiple environmental factors experienced during specific developmental periods, and cumulatively over time, on behavior during adolescence, and we elaborate on the bio-social link between stress, physiology, emotions and behavior. Our aim is not to put forth a holistic integrated theory on the effects of stress on adolescent behavior, but rather to call the attention of the scholarly communities to the overlap in knowledge, the increasingly critical importance of consilience and the potential benefit of making scholars in the various communities familiar with the works of each other.

Three main paradigms have been developed and used over several decades to examine and understand the effects of stress on health and behavior. The first one is rooted in biology and focuses on the concept of allostatic load (AL) to capture the cumulative biological burden exacted on the body from repeated attempts to adapt to life's demands ( Seeman et al. , 2001 ). The second paradigm stems from the mental health literature and focuses on the negative effects of stress on emotional and mental health ( Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend, 1969 ; Aneshensel et al. , 1991 ). The third paradigm is rooted in criminology/sociology of deviance and studies the effects of what is labeled ‘strain’ on delinquent behavior ( Merton, 1938 ; Cohen, 1955 ; Cloward and Ohlin, 1960 ).

We argue that the main difference between these three paradigms on the effects of stress on health and behavior is that they study stress on different levels; physiological, psychological, behavioral and group or community levels using different theoretical perspectives, different terminology and often focusing on different variables. For example, the various disciplines have discussed the effects of stress and strain on separate outcomes. The health sciences have focused on the effects on physiological reactions, psychology on analyzing the effects on emotional reactions and mental health and some criminologists and sociologists on the effects of stress and strain on behavior, whereas other sociologists and criminologists have focused on the rates of sickness or crime within groups and the collective efficacy of communities or even populations to counteract health risks and problem behavior ( Sampson et al. , 1999 ). The focus within different fields has also been on diverse levels at which stress/strain is created. Some sociologists and criminologists, for example, have focused on the larger structure of society and the links between social structure and the health-related problems of communities and populations, while research on stress and health within biology and mental health disciplines have placed greater emphasis on different stress exposures experienced by individuals, for example, in the form of negative life events or clinically diagnosed conditions such as depression or anxiety disorders. Hence, there are numerous social factors and conditions that may influence or increase the likelihood of stress and strain; originating within the broader organization of society, in negative life events that include both chronic stressors, such as persistent family conflicts, and acute events, such as a sudden death of a parent. We believe that considerably more knowledge on the processes of how stress leads to physiological, emotional and behavioral outcomes is a necessary prerequisite for understanding stress-related health problems. Below we discuss the different aspects of the three paradigms.

Stress and physiology

The first paradigm is rooted in biology and focuses on the effects of stress on physiological reactions. While humans have evolved to cope well with the occasional instances of acute stress caused by life-threatening events, recurrent activation of the body's stress response, particularly if the individual lacks coping resources, may have harmful effects on the body's physiology in the long run. The hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA) and the sympathetic adrenal medullary system (SAM) are considered primary mediators through which all stressors activate a common set of physiological pathways. These systems stimulate adaptation or ‘allostasis’ as defined by Sterling and Eyer ( Sterling and Eyer, 1988) . In the short term, allostasis allows us to adapt to a wide range of stressors, but when frequent or excessive demands push allostatic processes beyond their normal operating ranges, wear and tear at the cellular level follows. AL is the result, representing the cumulative impact of stressors on the body's regulatory systems, with AL contributing to outcomes such as poor mental and physical health outcomes ( Danese and McEwen, 2012 ).

Prior research has empirically supported some of the pathways by which stress influences physiology. For example, low socioeconomic status and poor interpersonal relationship histories have been associated with increased AL in a number of community-based cohorts ( Johnson et al. , 1992 ; Karlamangla et al. , 2002 ; Seplaki et al. , 2006 ) and prospective research has associated AL at baseline with increased risk for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease and declines in cognitive and physical functioning. Family environments, social conditions and psychological processes have in this way been shown to affect biological processes and biological functioning and predispositions influence the ways in which an individual selects and is shaped by the environment ( Rutter, 2002 ; Repetti et al. , 2011 ). All-in-all, research to date suggests that there are multiple interconnected biological systems that respond to psychosocial stress and influence each other. Hence, minor alterations in one system due to psychosocial stress may influence the functioning of the other(s).

Stress and emotions

Based on findings showing that stressful life events contribute to the onset and course of mental symptoms and disorders, the social stress model has guided efforts to examine social experiences and circumstances that are associated with variations in risk for mental health problems ( Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend, 1969 ; Turner et al. , 1995 ; Pearlin, 1999 ). The underlying assumption of the model is that variations in stress exposure are closely related to individual life conditions and social circumstances. In line with this reasoning, Aneshensel ( Aneshensel, 1992) called for a reorientation away from viewing stress as an isolated risk factor and toward its consideration as a link in a causal chain beginning with social conditions and ending with differences in risk for psychological distress. Numerous studies have supported the social stress model. Hence, both negative life events and chronic strain in the form of poverty, family conflict or abuse have been found to predict emotional problems ( Dohrenwend, 1990 ; Aneshensel et al. , 1991 ; Aneshensel, 1992 ; Turner and Lloyd, 1999 ; Ross, 2000 ).

The process through which stress affects emotions is obviously complicated. Understanding the underlying biological systems is a vital piece in this puzzle. A body of research has implicated disturbances in the HPA axis stress response system in the development of depression ( Murray et al. , 2010 ). Researchers have also suggested that perturbations of cortisol may represent a risk factor for the development of depression. Thus, Goodyer et al . ( Goodyer et al. , 2000) studied a sample of high-risk adolescents and found that the occurrence of one or more very high morning cortisol values over several days of salivary collection predicted the onset of depressive disorder in the subsequent 12 months. Adam et al . ( Adam et al. , 2010) reported similar findings, showing that a larger increase in cortisol in the 30 min after waking (i.e. the cortisol awakening response) predicted onsets of depression over the subsequent year among adolescents at risk for depression due to high levels of neuroticism. High levels of negative mood and life events at baseline also independently predicted onsets of depression in the same study.

Stress, social environment and social structure

It is now widely recognized that the social environment and social relationships can have powerful effects on health and behavioral outcomes. However, several studies underscore the complexity of capturing the social influences at various levels ( Brooks-Gunn et al. , 1993 ; Duncan and Raudenbush, 1999 ; Sampson, et al. , 1999 , 2002 ; Bernburg et al. , 2009a , b , c ). Colvin et al . ( Colvin et al. , 2002) emphasize that it is important to note that coercion can happen both at the micro level of interpersonal relations and at the macro level, where it includes economic and social pressure, created by social circumstances such as structural poverty, unemployment and conflict among groups. Thus, strain and conflict at the social and the neighborhood levels may influence the level of stress among groups or individuals. Merton's influential strain theory is good example of this complexity of levels. His ( Merton, 1938 ) classic theory of anomie describes how shared ideology of equal opportunity conflicts with cultural and social constraints that reduce or even hinder certain groups to achieve desirable social goals and may cause strain that is experienced as stress at both the group and individual level. Thus, Merton's theory of anomie and strain has inspired several sociological and criminological theories of the influence of social conditions on individuals ( Merton, 1938 ; Cohen, 1955 ; Cloward and Ohlin, 1960 ). Merton's ( Merton, 1938) theory of anomie also suggests that these cultural and social constraints may cause conflict and strain by hindering certain groups of adolescents to achieve desirable social goals. Researchers that have focused on these group effects of Merton's theory have described how community characteristics influence the life of children and adolescents over and beyond their individual-level experiences ( Brooks-Gunn et al. , 1991 , 1993 ; Kawachi et al. , 1997 ; Sampson et al. , 1999 ; Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn, 2000 ; Bernburg et al. , 2009a ).

Below, we discuss the individual and the community aspects of the social paradigm separately. But before we do that, we would like to make two points regarding this issue. First, while the physiological and psychological paradigms focus on the individual as a unit of analysis, the sociological paradigm operates on two different levels ( Duncan and Raudenbush, 1999 ; Sampson et al. , 1999 ; Billari, 2015 ). Recent advances in multilevel modeling have made it possible to analyze both the group and the individual level. In other words, we now can analyze the group level controlling for individual-level effects. Secondly, the same social mechanisms can operate on two different levels, for example, family conflict may exist between individual spouses, but they may also be influenced by community processes ( Bernburg et al. , 2009c ).

Individual-level effects

Several individual-level theories of stress research, which build on Merton's anomie theory, focus on the effects of strain on delinquent behavior. In 1992, Agnew put forth a revised version of strain theory, which he calls general strain theory (GST). GST combines aspects from different previously developed theories, including those on stress, equity/justice and aggression, to explain the effects of strain on harmful behavior among adolescents. Unlike prior strain theories, GST argues that adolescents are not only concerned with future goals of monetary success and middle class status but are also concerned about more immediate goals, such as doing well at school and being popular among peers. The theory proposes that social conditions may cause strain or blockage that frustrates adolescents and may lead to harmful behaviors.

While Agnew recognizes that there are many opportunities for individuals to experience strain, GST subsumes strain under three broad categories. First, strain may arise because individuals fail to achieve goals that they value. Secondly, GST maintains that strain arises if individuals experience threat or actual removal of valued stimuli, i.e. when individuals lose something that they value, for example, a boy- or girlfriend or when they need to leave their school and attend a new one. Thirdly, strain may emanate from the presentation of negative situations or events. This type of strain reflects the problems that arise for individuals when they experience adverse situations that they cannot legally escape from, such as family conflict, victimization or child abuse. GST proposes that adolescents are sometimes pressed into delinquency by negative emotional reactions that result from strain. In response to strain and its consequent negative emotional states, therefore, adolescents can respond with acts of theft, violence, vandalism and drug and/or alcohol use. Hence, GST can potentially explain a diverse range of delinquent behaviors, and provides an appropriate framework in the discussion on the effects of stress on multiple different outcomes, such as substance use, self-harm, suicides and delinquency.

A number of studies have provided support for GST, showing that strain leads to harmful behavior through negative emotional reactions. For the first 10 years, tests of the theory mainly focused on anger as the critical emotional reaction ( Mazerolle and Piquero, 1998 ; Aseltine et al. , 2000 ; Mazerolle et al. , 2000 ; Capowich et al. , 2001 ).

This was because anger results when individuals blame their adversity on others. It increases the individual's level of perceived injury, creates a desire for retaliation, energizes the individual for action and lowers inhibitions. However, results on the effects of strain on delinquent behavior mediated through anger were somewhat mixed. While extensive evidence has shown that higher levels of anger in adolescence are associated with a host of adverse psychosocial outcomes during that time period and in later life (e.g. Evans and English, 2002 ; Wittmann et al. , 2008 ; Midei and Matthews, 2009 ; Sigfusdottir and Silver, 2009 ; Sigfusdottir et al. , 2010 ), other studies have not revealed anger to be a key mediator ( Unnever et al. , 2004 ).

In line with these findings, scholars have pointed out that anger is not the only emotion likely to arise under stress and highlighted the importance of furthering our understanding of different emotions as mediating factors in this relationship ( Sigfusdottir et al. , 2004 ). In recent years, studies have shown that although anger and depressed mood are highly correlated emotions, comorbidity does not mean that these emotions are similar in their relations to behavioral outcomes ( Sigfusdottir et al. , 2004 , 2008 ; Asgeirsdottir et al. , 2011 ). Whereas anger energizes the individual for action, lowers inhibitions and hence increases externalizing behavior, depressed mood is not related to this type of behavior. Similarly, depressed mood is highly associated with certain kinds of (internalizing) behavior, such as suicidal ideation and self-harm, while anger is a much weaker predictor of those behaviors. These findings have added to our understanding of the implications of the interrelatedness between these phenomena, showing that whereas depressed mood and anger are overlapping phenomena, they are separate in their relations to behavioral outcomes. At the same time, they have revealed how complicated this process is, and the fact that the way adverse circumstances translate into behavior is still little understood. For example, a recent paper on family conflict/violence and sexual abuse, and suicidal ideation and attempt showed that even though depressed mood and anger were highly comorbid, co-occurring to a high degree, they differed in their behavioral outcomes; depressed mood was more strongly associated with suicidal ideation, whereas anger was more strongly related to suicidal attempts ( Sigfusdottir et al. , 2013 ). Furthermore, the complexity of the associations between stress, emotional reactions and harmful behavior become apparent when considering the findings that; when controlling for anger, depressed mood is strongly related to suicidal ideation and remains also quite strongly related to suicidal attempt, but when controlling for depressed mood, anger is only related to suicidal attempt.

Community-level effects

Merton's ( Merton, 1938) theory of Anomie suggests that some societal or neighborhood factors are contextual in the sense that they cannot be reduced to individual-level experience. They describe how community characteristics influence the life of children and adolescents over and beyond their individual-level experiences. It is therefore important to incorporate higher-level measures on the local community level and policy environment (e.g. counties, districts) that may now be studied in conjunction with individual-level outcomes using multilevel analysis techniques (e.g. hierarchical linear models, growth curve models, multilevel structural equation models). Such approaches provide an important way to study how community characteristics influence the life of children and adolescents in combination with individual characteristics. Studies on community-level stress have focused on important structural factors, such as community poverty, neighborhood instability, inequality and relative deprivation ( Brooks-Gunn et al. , 1991 , 1993 ; Kawachi et al. , 1997 ; Sampson et al. , 1999 ; Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn, 2000 ; Bernburg et al. , 2009a ). For example, community levels of family conflict influence not only the likelihood of harmful behavior among adolescents that experience disruption personally, but also that higher aggregated community levels of disrupted family processes increase the likelihood of harmful behavior among all adolescents in such communities ( Bernburg et al. , 2009c ). This point is important, especially given the central role that families play in many theories of child and adolescent harmful behavior ( Hirschi, 1969 ; Agnew, 1992 ; Sampson and Laub, 1993 ). The recent multilevel findings indicate that research on the effect of stress, including family conflict on adolescent behavior, should not be limited to individual-level analysis. Time and age also appear to matter in this respect; Odgers et al . have recently shown that neighborhood effects on child outcomes may be detected as early as from the age of 5, and that this association tends to increase over time ( Odgers et al. , 2012 ). In order to fully understand the processes through which neighborhoods affect individuals, we need to focus not only on the link between neighborhood characteristics and behavioral outcomes, but also on the mediating mechanisms in the form of emotional and biological responses. Recently, Wallace ( Wallace, 2012) made an important point by suggesting that disorder needs to invoke feelings of fear in order to affect peoples' health. Hence, it is necessary to study not only the main effects of neighborhood characteristics on outcomes, but to include possible mediating mechanisms, in the form of emotional reactions and biological responses. The framework we are putting forth proposes that stress, including neighborhood stress, affects behavior through both physiological and emotional reactions. Hence, the framework argues for the need to capture neighborhood characteristics all at once, is fit for neighborhood modeling and includes a variety of individual-level survey and biomarker measures. Recent findings indicate that research on the effect of stress, including family conflict on adolescent behavior, should not be limited to individual-level analysis, therefore adding a new dimension to previous research paradigms. In short, prior findings from multilevel analysis show that limiting research to the individual-level approach provides an incomplete account of the effects that the social environment has on children and adolescents.

Each of the three paradigms above have guided studies showing that stress affects our physiology, emotions and behavior. However, the relationships between stress, physiology, emotions, behavior, and social structure are complex. Exactly how stress translates into outcomes such as harmful behavior is little understood. Hence, it is highly likely that whether or not an environmental stress becomes relevant to an individual does not only depend on how often a stressor occurs and how severe it is, but how strongly the individual physiologically, and emotionally, reacts to stress. To corroborate the view of how complicated this process is, recent studies on disruption of the HPA axis and cortisol production paint an inconsistent picture on its relations with emotional reactions ( Tyrka et al. , 2010 ) and harmful behavior ( Sondeijker et al. , 2007 ; Ruttle et al. , 2011 ). In order to come closer than previous work has in estimating how environmental stress and strain may affect biological responses among adolescents, the framework presented in Figure  1  proposes that stress and strain at the community and individual levels affect physiological and emotional reactions along the early life to childhood continuum that can result in harmful behavior during adolescence.

Community-level stress and strain and the proposed pathways to harmful behavior, with associated measures.

This proposed multilevel developmental framework argues for the importance of examining the impact of stress on biological systems and specific emotions, as well as the interplay between these factors in order to elucidate the relevant pathways to different behavioral outcomes. The framework suggests that future studies examine in detail the influence of cumulative as well as specific stressors on emotional reactions, while identifying essential moderators and the potential mediating role of the biological systems in this relationship and the development of these pathways across important developmental transitions. The arrows connecting these factors to harmful behavioral outcomes in adolescence represent the pathways of primary interest. Thus, stress experienced early in life may have implications for harmful behavior in adolescence, through physiological and emotional reactions.

During the last 20 years, research with children and adolescents has linked stress to poor health and harmful behavior. Research has demonstrated that social conflict at various levels, ranging from societal levels to specific social groups, such as the family or peer groups, can increase stress that has harmful consequences for health and the well-being of children and adolescents. First, research at the societal level has shown how social environments can influence the consequences of stress. Secondly, research at the psychological level has demonstrated how stressful situations and life events interact with personal characteristics to produce harmful stress-related outcomes. Thirdly, research on stress at the biological level casts light on the biological and physiological mechanisms involved in the harmful influences of stress on human health. The diversity of concepts applied in the study of stress and strain mirrors the fact that the domain has been largely investigated and discussed within separate academic disciplines, each focusing on a certain level of analysis; with the biological sciences focusing on the effects of stress on physiological reactions, psychological sciences examining the effects of stress on emotional reactions and social sciences focusing on the effects of stress/strain on behavior. Within different fields, the focus has also been on diverse levels at which stress/strain is created, with sociologists and criminologists, for example, focusing on the larger structure of society and the links between social structure and population strain; they have mostly worked with the term strain and its effects on delinquency. Research on stress within health disciplines, however, has placed greater emphasis on different stress exposures experienced by individuals and their effects on individual mental and physical health.

There is no doubt that research at these different levels has furthered our understanding of the harmful effects of stress on the welfare of children and adolescents. But despite several decades of robust findings on the effects of adverse experiences on health and harmful behavior, major gaps still remain in our knowledge about the mechanisms through which adverse experiences work to increase the likelihood of poor health and harmful behavior during adolescence ( Cullen, 1994 ; Colvin et al. , 2002 ). We know, for instance, that exposure to, and experience of, stress increases the odds for later negative development, including emotional problems, deficits in physical health and even harmful behaviors. What we do not know is whether these odds are cumulative, can be quantified or can be reversed with external supportive interventions during early developmental stages and later adolescence.

We believe that bringing together knowledge from the various scientific disciplines in a coherent study on stress is critical for advancing our understanding of threats to adolescent well-being. Such an approach would have important implications for policies within education, criminal justice and physical and mental health. We propose that in order to come closer than previous work has in estimating how environmental stress may affect biological responses that in turn lead to different emotions and behavior among adolescents, a comprehensive research approach must form the basis for future empirical studies. Moreover, it is important to design longitudinal studies where data on participants are collected at several times over the lifespan, including data drawn on key variables from the pre-birth period, such as maternal and intrauterine factors. Developing a research design that allows us to combine developmental approaches and various contexts in a comprehensive and effective way is one of the major challenges for future research (see Duncan and Raudenbush, 1999 ). Also, to provide a basis for developing a novel and comprehensive understanding of adolescent health and harmful behavior, it is important to examine both mediating and moderating effects of social–environmental predictors on physiological, emotional and behavioral outcomes. By taking such a theoretical approach, we would overcome the methodological weaknesses that many studies focusing on the early determinants of children's environment on later outcomes have faced. Moreover, as pointed out in a recent review, clinical samples do not provide a comprehensive understanding of confounding and comorbid factors, as the thresholds of discrete conditions are already defined, while cross-sectional studies cannot enhance our understanding of developmental processes ( Thompson et al. , 2010 ). Thus, in addition to issues pertaining to research design, we argue that it is important to combine different theoretical paradigms of research on the effects of stress on behavioral outcomes.

It is important to capture variables from biological, individual and community levels in one comprehensive analysis. Such a holistic conceptual approach would allow us to disentangle how multiple environmental factors intertwine to produce greater odds for unhealthy development. To accomplish this task, we need to move beyond a narrow discipline-based approach by adding together viewpoints and methodological approaches from different fields. To facilitate such work, we need a universal language and uniform concepts and measures to describe similar processes that heretofore have been discussed using different terms within diverse disciplines. A prerequisite for such common language is a multilevel developmental framework, accompanied by empirical tests, telling us whether similar processes may be at work in different fields. The framework we have proposed provides such a prerequisite for investigating the effects of multiple-level factors, within the larger structure of society as well as in closer social circumstances of the individual, experienced during specific developmental periods, and cumulatively over time, on physiology, emotions and behavior in adolescence. Such a model would provide a unique opportunity to begin to understand the questions about whether the effects of stress may be conditioned by outside factors and what intervention approaches prove most beneficial in hindering harmful emotional and behavioral reactions to stress during adolescence.

This work was supported by a Project Grant (206580-21-22-23) from RANNIS, the Icelandic Centre for Research and a Research Consolidator Grant (ERC-CoG-2014—No. 647860) from the European Research Council.

We thank George Bonanno, Department of Clinical and Counseling Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University, for offering insightful comments on an early draft of the manuscript. We also thank Ingibjorg Eva Thorisdottir, research assistant at Reykjavik University, and Lindsay Huffhines, Department of Community, Family, and Addiction Services, Texas Tech University (a Fulbright Student Program Scholar at Reykjavik University at the time), for their assistance in the preparation of the manuscript.

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Teenage Stress

Addressing the pressures teens face in today’s fast-paced world..

Posted December 8, 2015 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Teens are under more stress today than ever before. Sound like an exaggeration? Despite the fact that I am often prone to hyperbole, consider this: being a teenager is not easy.

Adolescence has always been a tricky developmental period defined by fundamental yet somewhat difficult changes (physical, cognitive, and social) experienced by teens as they make their way from childhood toward adulthood. These transitions trigger changes in the way the teen sees him/herself, and the way that others see and treat him or her. They are no longer children, but not yet adults, and this series of transitions not only has an impact on the individual experiencing the transitions, but also on parents, peers, and society as a whole.

Adolescence has always been an awkward stage where teens struggle to build their own identity , seek autonomy, and learn about intimacy and sexuality in relationships. These things all cause a certain level of angst, but they are not really new.

What is new is the environment that we live in, and it is this fast-paced, perpetually plugged-in society that sets the tone for the messages and expectations that teens receive every day. Due to varying pressures around school, work, families, relationships, social media , and the seemingly endless series of transitions involved in simply being an adolescent, teens today are indeed under more stress than ever before.

There are certain contexts that inevitably make being a teen even more difficult. Living in poverty, or being in an abusive home, for example. Other, more recent issues, such as society’s pressures on young people to grow up fast, have their lives completely figured out by the time they start middle school, and today’s technological and social innovations that have transformed family life, make the experience of teen transitions exponentially more difficult.

So, why are teens so “angsty” today?

School: Today, kids are expected to know what they want to do—where they want to go to school and in which field they'd like to work—earlier than ever before. They are also expected to do well, and are put on “success” tracks even in elementary school. They have to do well because it is assumed that all kids will/must go to college, and not just that, but they must get into the best college if they want to “succeed” and be competitive in today’s job market. This is a lot of pressure on teens.

Work: Most teens work to earn money, which they like, but it takes time away from other things like academics, extra-curricular activities, volunteering, spending time with family and friends, having fun, and simply enjoying life.

Expectations: Whether it is real or not, teenagers' perceptions are that they are expected to be successful or good at everything . Teens today feel a lot of pressure from parents, teachers, coaches, other family/friends to not fail. Failure has somehow gone from being viewed as a learning opportunity to being clearly unacceptable. This puts even more pressure on teens.

Social Connections: Given the fact that the overwhelming majority of teens today are tethered to a smartphone or other device that keeps them linked on social networking sites, teens justifiably feel “on” all the time. Their every move is judged by their peers, whether their peers are their true, real live friends, or the 1,254 “friends” on Facebook or followers on Twitter. So, the pressure is always on to be cute, clever, sexy, smart, popular, etc., and because social networking sites are the modern-day hangout spot, where teens spend a huge chunk of each day, it can be exhausting.

What can parents do?

• We, as parents of teens, must communicate. A recent study from the Pew Research Center asked a national sample of adults which skills are most important for children to have to succeed in the world today. The answer: communication. As parents, we should take our own advice and talk to our teens about expectations, goals , and ask teens about what they think, what they want, and how they feel.
• This, of course, means that we should also be prepared to listen. Really listen. Teens need to know that although we clearly want what is best for them in their future lives, what’s best doesn’t necessarily have to equate to what we want. We should hear what they have to say and consider how they envision their future.
• Our teens also need unconditional love, acceptance, and support, and we should be explicit in communicating this to them. We often assume that they know this (and they probably do), but they really need to hear it.
• Parents should also help their teens to set realistic expectations and keep things in perspective. No, it’s not the end of the world as we know it if our teen, for example, has not decided what she is majoring in during her freshman year of college. Nor does it make you a horrible parent to think that it is OK for our teens to fail at something… after all, failure presents an opportunity for growth! If we allow our children to fall, they can learn from their mistakes (called natural consequences) and pick themselves back up.

Sara Villanueva, Ph.D. , an associate professor of psychology at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, is the author of The Angst of Adolescence: How to Parent Your Teen and Live to Laugh About It .

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What stresses adolescents? A qualitative study on perceptions of stress, stressors and coping mechanisms among urban adolescents in India

TK Nagabharana Roles: Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Project Administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing Shama Joseph Roles: Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing Azeez Rizwana Roles: Data Curation, Project Administration, Supervision, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing Murali Krishna Roles: Conceptualization, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – Review & Editing Mary Barker Roles: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing Caroline Fall Roles: Conceptualization, Funding Acquisition, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing Kalyanaraman Kumaran Roles: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Supervision, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing GV Krishnaveni Roles: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing

This article is included in the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance gateway.

Adolescents, stress, coping, India, family conflict, academic pressure; qualitative research

Introduction

Psychological stress is an unpleasant subjective feeling perceived when an individual’s situational demands exceed their adaptive capacity 1 . Persistent stress is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and other adult non-communicable diseases 2 . Psychological stress can also precipitate adverse mental health outcomes such as anxiety, depression and suicidal ideations 3 .

Adolescence is a period of increased stress perception and reactivity 4 . Various studies suggest rising prevalence of stress among adolescents and its increasing influence on adolescent health 5 , 6 . A rapid change in physical, psychological, physiological and social aspects during transitional adolescent phase may heighten stress reactivity 4 . Abnormalities due to stress in physiology and psychological status during this transitional phase is likely to set lifestyle and risk trajectories in motion for future disease development. Intervention measures to address exaggerated perception of stress during this sensitive period may benefit future health.

One of the key considerations for developing interventions is to assess the need for this among adolescents through a deeper understanding of their perception of stress and stressors, and their in-built coping abilities. A “person-based approach” to intervention, where adolescents’ perspectives and psychosocial context of the intervention are understood, and accommodated in a systematic manner through qualitative research, is thought to strengthen the evidence-base and acceptability of interventions 7 . SRAVANA (Stress Responses in Adolescence and Vulnerability to Adult Non-communicable disease) is a multifaceted study to examine the life course biological and psychological factors that determine stress among adolescents and to develop complex interventions for its management 8 . As part of this initiative we undertook a qualitative study in a group of urban adolescents. The objectives were to explore adolescents’ perception of stress and stressors in their daily life, understand the strategies by which they cope with daily stresses, and identify the areas where they seek further support.

Study setting

The study was undertaken among urban-dwelling adolescents in Mysore in southern India. Mysore is a densely populated city of over 1 million residents, living mainly in individual homes and a smaller proportion of 3–4 storey apartment buildings. The city consists of several old neighbourhoods, many of which were established more than 150 years ago, and new extensions to accommodate its growing population. About 20% of the population live below the poverty line, while the rest can be classified as middle class. Mysore residents are engaged in both skilled and unskilled labour.

Ethics approval

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the CSI Holdsworth Memorial Hospital, Mysore (June 2017; no. CSIHMH/ERU2017/1). The committee membership follows Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines and is composed of a total of nine members (2 clinicians, 3 scientists, 1 legal expert, 1 social scientist/ spiritual leader, 1 academician and 1 lay person).

Participants and recruitment

Study participants were purposively recruited until data saturation was achieved through the interviews; the final sample consisted of 10 older adolescents (17–25 years of age) and six younger adolescents (12–15 years), with an equal number of boys and girls in each group. The older adolescents were recruited via telephone call from the Parthenon Cohort, an ongoing prospective birth cohort study at Holdsworth Memorial Hospital (HMH) in Mysore to examine the developmental origins of adult disease 9 . The well-established relationships developed during follow-up of this cohort since birth, were helpful in creating an environment of trust for them to open up and share details about their lives. The younger adolescents were recruited by word of mouth from among those known to existing contacts, which included collaborators of previous research projects and acquaintances and friends of former and current employees of our Research Unit. Adolescents who were interested in participating then contacted the research team directly.

All study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of HMH. After explaining the goals and objectives of the research, written informed consent was obtained from older adolescents and the parents/ caregivers of younger adolescents; younger adolescents gave their own written informed assent for participation.

Data collection

The present study comprised 16 in-depth interviews (IDI) guided by a semi-structured interview schedule ( Table 1 ). Because of the potentially sensitive nature of the data, IDIs were chosen as the most appropriate method. Furthermore IDI’s are more likely to give insights into adolescents’ experiences in a detailed manner that would not be feasible with a structured questionnaire. The semi-structured interview comprised open- ended items to facilitate in-depth exploration related to the following:

Table 1. Semi-structured interview schedule used in the study.

1. What makes adolescents stressed?

2. What effect does stress have on adolescents’ daily life?

3. How do they cope with stress?

4. Does it help to get extra support from others?

This guide was developed by the Mysore research team (GVK, SVJ, MK and KK) and qualitative researchers at the University of Southampton (MB and CHDF). It was pilot tested with two IDIs which were included in subsequent data analysis. No changes were implemented as a result of pilot testing. The interviews were conducted between March 2018 and March 2020.

The questions and probes in the guide were asked in a sequence to promote a logical and smooth flow of discussion. The interviews lasted between 17 and 36 minutes. Recruitment of new participants was stopped when we arrived at the stage of data saturation when new themes stopped emerging.

All IDIs, except one which was conducted at a children’s hostel, were carried out at the HMH Research Unit, and by one male and two female investigators who were medical doctors and doctorate holders, and trained by experts in qualitative research methods. The older adolescents were known to the interviewers as long-term participants of the Parthenon cohort. Younger participants were not acquainted with the interviewers. The interviews were conducted on a one-to-one basis, in a separate, sound-proof room. Each session started with an ice breaker question. Depending on the participants’ preference, IDIs were conducted in either English or the local language, Kannada, or a mixture of the two, which is a common way of communication among Mysore residents.

Transcription and translation

All IDIs were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim; participants were anonymised by replacing names with codes. Whenever Kannada was used, audio files were transcribed into English directly because the transcribers were fluent in both languages. The interviews thus transcribed were checked back against the original audio files to ensure accuracy (by SVJ).

Thematic analysis

The qualitative data in this study was analysed using the approach of Braun and Clarke (2006) 10 . All the IDI transcripts were coded and analysed manually coded by TKN, SVJ and GVK; we did not use a qualitative research software for analysis. An initial coding framework (with a list of codes) was developed. As new codes emerged, they were incorporated into the coding framework. Finally, codes that were related to each other were categorized together under higher order codes to identify the main themes that emerged from the data set. Issues that were mentioned only once or by a single participant were included as additional, standalone points of view. Direct quotes from the IDIs were selected and used in the manuscript to illustrate specific issues or pieces of information that the participant wished to convey. Reporting of the study findings followed consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) guidelines 11 .

Among the ten older adolescents (17–25 years; mean [SD]: 19.9 [2.3] years) two girls were married and living with their spouse and his immediate family; 6 were still studying, and 3 were in paid jobs including one boy who was also attending university. All the six younger adolescents (12–15 years; 13.7 [1.0] years) were in school; 5 of them were living with their family, while one was under the care of a hostel warden.

Data from the IDI’s are presented below as themes and subthemes under three main headings related to stress and coping strategies.

Theme 1. Stressors and stress

In general adolescents perceived that they experience stress in their daily life. Despite viewing stress as a part of life, there was a definite indication of its undesirable impact in their lives. They identified a range of stressors which are categorised as subthemes presented below.

Family is the main thing . Family aspects were the most prominently indicated stressors especially among older adolescents. The adolescents felt that family pressures and/or conflicts triggered a range of uncomfortable emotions in them.

Pressure from the family: The adolescents felt that being forced, either openly or implicitly, to take part in a range of activities and responsibilities was indeed stressful. These included direct pressure to socialise within extended families, expectations to conform to the family structure and its values, and a felt obligation to maintain family bonds and take general responsibility of the family.

“How to manage family in the future…that’s also a stress, and besides that younger and older sisters’ marriage, their marriages how to do, where to do…that is also a stress” (Participant # 8, Older adolescent, Male)

In younger adolescents, parental pressure for good academic performance was the major stressor.

“ They’ll (parents) give a lot of tension - You HAVE to study like this, you HAVE to score this percentage; they’ll put a lot of pressure on the children. That creates tension for us” (Participant # 11, Younger adolescent, Female)

Family conflicts: There was an underlying sense of conflict with family members or family circumstances among several adolescents. This was particularly highlighted by the two married participants (both girls). They felt that being chastised by the elders in the spouse’s family was an everyday background stress in their lives which led to constant displeasure.

“Oh the usual things...like when someone scolds....like if I’ve made a mistake, done something wrong...it’s the usual....I feel bad and it causes daily stress. I’ll feel bad because I’ve done that (something wrong)” (Participant #5, Older Adolescent, Female)

A few participants indirectly suggested that a lack of happiness in the family could be stressful. Stress was also triggered by a feeling of being neglected by their parents. One particular participant also mentioned that they perceived an abusive family environment as a stressor.

Academics and workplace . Pressure to perform well academically featured repeatedly as one of the major stressors, mainly in younger adolescents. Stress was triggered not only from family and teachers, but their own fears for their future.

“...poor thing right, kids? We also will become so stressed right? And if we don’t score well, what will happen to us in the future” (Participant #11, Younger adolescent, Female)

Stress was also created by a non-conducive and conflict-ridden academic environment, or work environment in the case of some older adolescents. The adolescents felt greatly stressed by a poorly scheduled school curriculum leading to time pressure, an inadequate school infrastructure with the lack of essential facilities such as a cafeteria, or vindictive and hostile teachers.

“Some teachers don’t particularly like some students.. and .. I don’t know.. some of them have a grudge against OUR class.. so that irritates me…..” (Participant # 16, Younger adolescent, Female)

Peers . Peer-induced stresses were not of major concern among our participants. A few older adolescents felt that a sense of inferiority or fear of missing out on good things when comparing themselves with their peers’ situation was stressful. Issues around romantic relationships, including pressure of impressing their boyfriends/ girlfriends or painful breakups were also thought to cause stress in some older adolescents. Two younger adolescents mentioned that minor fights with other schoolmates were stressful as it might lead to castigation from parents or teachers. In a few younger adolescents, comparing their academic scores with those of their peers was a source of stress. One adolescent even expressed that it is unfair for them to get lower marks despite putting in similar efforts to the top scorer.

“It’s because both should have equal.... The thing is anyone would like to be at the top of the class, right? ....if one is not the topper... Just like that, both [of us] should get the same marks.... After putting in hard work and studying, if [we] don’t get marks then we feel …somewhat” (Participant # 13, Younger adolescent, Male)

Money and social position . Socio-economic issues appeared to be a source of stress only in older adolescents in our study. The most common feeling was the lack of nicer things that others had and a feeling of inferiority. For some, lack of money, and the resultant discontent over unmet desires for a better life was a stressor.

“My father’s...my father has still not built a separate house...what I mean is, we have been living in the same place for the past 18 years…… Our father loses a lot of money. Instead of losing money, it would be good if he builds a house, or if he buys things for our home” (Participant # 1, Older adolescent, Female)

Gender dynamics . Two out of the three young adolescent girls in the study voluntarily highlighted specific issues involving boys. In both instances the participants felt that the situation was highly stressful. One girl expressed that girls being friendly with boys in the class was not approved of by their teachers, which resulted in them being unpleasant to her. This girl, who was visibly upset, said that this ‘annoyed’ her. Another girl said that she feels uncomfortable because boys stare at her while she walks to after-school tuitions. She said that such situations were highly upsetting and impeded her daily life activities.

“boys will be standing and I feel somewhat to go. That’s all ...They will be staring at us when we go... So , I feel somewhat! If they are standing I feel like why to go now? I don’t know, but I feel bad....They are standing there, don’t want to go to the tuition....No, near my house.. I feel bad... They will see me.” (Participant # 14, Younger adolescent, Female)

Theme 2. Stress expression

Stress was reactively expressed through various emotions as indicated by the adolescents. There was a clear distinction between the younger and older participants in these reactions. Anger was the recurring feeling amongst most of the older adolescents. One participant expressed that they had violent thoughts about ‘scolding’, ‘beating’ and even ‘killing’ the person who caused the stress; a few said that the anger resulted in aggressive behaviours towards unsuspecting family members.

“Like someone would have scolded me...I would have taken that anger out on someone else...like that...or take it out on the baby (laughs slightly)” (Participant # 5, Older adolescent, Female)

Stress appeared to present as fear in younger interviewees, mostly due to the worry arising out of not doing an expected task like ‘homework’ (fear of teachers) or getting low marks in the exams (fear of parents).

“So their parents…..they yell at them or make them feel bad. And a lot of my friends actually cry in school when they score less marks because they’re worried about what will happen at home” (Participant # 16, Younger adolescent, Female)

Other common reactionary emotions were sadness, feeling hurt, annoyance or feeling guilty.

Theme 3. Coping and seeking help

Generally the participants were insightful that being stressed was not good for them, and that they wanted relief from it almost immediately. This was reflected in the process by which they chose their coping strategies. We identified two distinct actions (see below), which either alone or in tandem brought prompt relief from stress.

Distancing from the situation causing stress . The first [instinctive] response towards coping involved adolescents appearing to distance themselves from the stressful situation, either physically by taking time off, staying alone, or getting out of that place; or emotionally, withdrawing from the source of stress by remaining silent. This was most common among older adolescents, and was often effective in relieving the stress.

“I don’t get stressed....as soon as I get angry or whatever, I’ll fall silent. I won’t talk to anyone....by doing that I will bring my anger under control by myself.....” (Participant # 2, Older adolescent, Male)

Reflection . Both younger and older adolescents indicated that stress was frequently followed by reflective, positive thoughts. They were usually aware of their emotions, tried to understand others’ points of view and the circumstance, accepted the situation, and generally put things into perspective.

“....… we shouldn’t take much stress, shouldn’t take too much tension…. what will happen it will happen, we cannot do anything about it… so what is going on we should be happy with that, without thinking too much about what should happen and shouldn’t happen… what might happen will anyway happen, so just focus on our goals and go on” (Participant # 8, Older adolescent, Male)

Specific coping strategies . Some adolescents also mentioned that following the processes of distancing and reflection in sequence also led to choosing a specific coping strategy that worked best for them in that situation. Some of these were related to specific actions to calm the mind, including meditation and taking rest. Others were distraction activities, including sports, outdoor walks, long drives, creative art, video games, watching favourite television shows and eating ( “Tummy full, no anger” ; Participant # 4, Older adolescent, Female) . A few adolescents relied on avoidance strategies from stressful events or people. Two of the younger adolescents also found help in spirituality.

“I’ll go to...I’ll go to the ‘ devara mane’ (prayer room)...I’ll look at God and start (my work). If there is any tension and I am not able to tell Mother, I’ll go to the devara mane’, tell it in front of God and I will just calm myself.” (Participant # 11, Younger adolescent, Female)

Sharing their worries with others acted as an effective coping strategy in some of them, though this was not the first choice in older adolescents. Sharing was mainly with friends in the older adolescents, and both friends and family in younger participants. Both the married girls confided and regularly discussed their issues with their spouse, which they found was helpful.

Risk behaviour: A few older participants suggested that either they or their peers may seek risky or harmful strategies to get immediate relief from stress. These were mainly related to the consumption of alcohol and smoking. One adolescent also said that fast driving is another risky coping strategy among their peers. All of these adolescents, except one, suggested that these behaviours were noticed among their peers, but not in themselves. The adolescents thought that this may lead to an addictive behaviour on repeated stress.

“You know the thing is when we are very stressed out and people go and do cigarettes no, uh it feels...we feel relief, ok? So what happens next time we feel stressed.. uh.. one more cigarette.. one more cigarette.. and it goes on." (Participant # 4, Older adolescent, Female)

Coping strategies usually brought relief from stress which participants described as happiness, calmness, peace, relaxation, or a sense of being free and refreshed.

Seeking help . Generally, all participants indicated that they seek practical solutions to their problems from adults. Adolescents felt that the adults should listen to their worries without judgement. This sentiment was particularly highlighted by one girl who preferred to share her stresses with her doll because “it did not talk back” (Participant # 10, Older adolescent, Female) . A few adolescents sought a regular visit to a youth centre where they can relax through activities or discuss their issues and come up with solutions. One participant felt that talking to a person close to their age was more helpful than discussing their issues with an older adult. Another boy felt that adolescents need personal space and time to recover from stress.

“… if someone is stressed, they should simply be left alone to relax for 10–15 minutes. No one should try to talk to them…I feel that would give them relief.” (Participant # 2, Older adolescent, Male)

This study aimed at an in-depth understanding of stress and stressors among adolescents, we found that youngsters, irrespective of age and gender, perceived stress in daily life. Family and academic pressures were considered the major stressors. Adolescents seemed to have efficient coping strategies and support for the prompt relief from stress. Additional support was mainly sought for practical solutions to the stressful situations.

Adolescence is described as a period of ‘storm and stress’, owing to intense stress perception and reactivity characteristic of this age 4 . Widespread neuro-cognitive and behavioural changes and changing patterns of social interactions are thought to underlie this transitional phase. Adolescents form about 20% of the population in India, one of the largest percentages in the world 12 . Recent reports of increasing mental health issues, including depression and suicidal tendencies among youth may suggest an increasing prevalence or perception of stress 6 , 13 . Though nationally representative data on adolescent stress is not available, it can be anecdotally assumed that some amount of stress is universal in today’s adolescents. Structured tools designed for specific situations and population may not identify small stressors and stresses which may have huge implications for their well-being.

Our study is one of few to use qualitative methods to understand the concerns around stress among adolescents in India, and the first to use in-depth interviews as far as we know. We found that stress is ubiquitous in adolescents, irrespective of age. The triggers for stress ranged from minor conflicts to serious issues around financial responsibilities and abuse. Family pressure was one of the major stressors for adolescents. Previously, other qualitative and quantitative studies have identified family-related stress perception among adolescents 14 – 16 . This was thought to result from a perception of challenges around establishing an independent social identity 16 . The conflict between a traditional family environment instructing what adolescents should do, and adolescents’ aspirations for autonomy may bring out tensions within the family. Academic pressure appeared to be another major trigger for stress. Several studies have highlighted that children and adolescents in India are under high pressure to perform well in academics 15 , 17 – 19 . which is a major deciding factor for their future career options in a highly competitive and stressful environment of limited opportunities 20 . This has been shown to influence several aspects of their lives including lifestyle habits such as diet and physical activity 21 , 22 , apart from increased prevalence of anxiety and depression 17 – 19 . Interestingly, peer-issues, which feature commonly in other studies was not a major determinant of stress according to our participants.

Notwithstanding these stresses, our youth appeared to have effective coping methods in place. Strategies to relieve stress were varied – distraction activities, avoidance, and calming methods were some of the methods employed, which are well established coping strategies reported in other studies from high-income countries 23 . However, the most common and effective strategy seemed to be cognitive. Putting things into perspective was employed by both younger and older adolescents. They seemed to understand the futility of continued stress perception, as well as its adverse implications for their well-being. Similar coping methods have been observed in other studies in India 12 , 14 – 16 .

Strengths and limitations

The main strength of this study is that we conducted in-depth interviews rather than group discussions, which allowed youngsters to divulge sensitive information related to their stress in the privacy of a closed session with a single interviewer. Also, including both male and female adolescents in our sample helped to identify a large number of stressors and coping strategies that were both similar and disparate between the genders. Further, the participants were from diverse backgrounds - recruiting both younger adolescents who were full-time students, and older adolescents who were students, paid employees, and/or married, provided a broader understanding of stress in these age groups, allowing us to capture qualitative data that was rich. Another strength was the provision for open ended questions allowing for in-depth inquiry when indicated.

One possible limitation was uneven numbers of younger and older adolescents in the analysis, which may have limited a meaningful comparison of the two groups. However, our study was not designed a priori to test these differences, but we felt that the observed differences by age were important to report. Also, a female researcher interviewed most of the adolescent boys, and due to the nature of the research topic, boys at this stage of life might not have felt comfortable enough to share certain types of information, although none of them refused to participate and reported feeling inhibited during the interview in the feedback. Another limitation may be a smaller sample size. However, we continued the participant recruitment until the data saturation was perceived, and therefore, surplus numbers were less likely to have discovered additional concepts. Moreover, our sample size conforms to the expected numbers for individual interview designs in other qualitative studies 24 .

In conclusion, developing interventions to manage stress among adolescents requires a better understanding of their own perception of the need and the method best suited for their situation. In this respect, our study suggests that measures that stimulate cognitive appraisal and understanding of the stressful situation may be more effective in developing resilience to stress among adolescents in this urban setting. This may help to change the lifestyle trajectories of those adolescents who may resort to risk behaviours as an escape from stress. We propose that a physical or virtual youth platform that offers personal space and an outlet for adolescents to express their stresses may help mitigate the long-term effects of every day stresses in this crucial life stage. Our future efforts are aimed at developing interventions incorporating these principles.

Data availability

The study data are not freely available due to ethical and security considerations. Anonymised interview transcripts data are available on reasonable request subject to Health Ministry Screening Committee (HMSC), India and Institutional Ethics Committee approval. For further information contact the corresponding author: Dr. GV Krishnaveni ( [email protected] ).

Acknowledgements

Our sincere thanks to the participating families and the CSI Holdsworth Memorial Hospital staff, the research team, and the staff of the Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit for their support. We also thank SNEHA-India for its support.

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• 23.   Herres J: Adolescent coping profiles differentiate reports of depression and anxiety symptoms. J Affect Disord. 2015; 186 : 312–9. PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text | Free Full Text
• 24.   Vasileiou K, Barnett J, Thorpe S, et al. : Characterising and justifying sample size sufficiency in interview-based studies: systematic analysis of qualitative health research over a 15-year period. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2018; 18 (1): 148. PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text | Free Full Text

Comments on this article Comments (0)

Open peer review.

Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?

Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?

Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?

If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?

Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?

Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?

Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.

Reviewer Expertise: Child and Youth Mental Health, Global Mental Health

• Respond or Comment
• COMMENT ON THIS REPORT
• Clarify the type of intervention that you aim to build i.e. stress prevention, stress management, etc.  
• The introduction section does not emphasise the scope of the problem. It would be useful to add statistics from studies conducted on adolescent stress (global > low- and middle-income countries >India).  
• In the methods section (‘Study setting’), elaborate on information about adolescents living in Mysore instead of generic information about Mysore.  
• Reference the statement about IDIs being the best tool to collect sensitive data.  
• There’s lack of clarity in “It was pilot tested with two IDIs which were included in subsequent data analysis. No changes were implemented as a result of pilot testing.” Please clarify why no changes were implemented.  
• Suggest explaining why qualitative research software was not used for analysis.  
• Suggest presenting demographic data in a table format; It is not required to share the marital status of women if the same is not done for adolescents boys/young men.  
• Maintain consistency in reporting findings i.e all participants>older adolescents>younger adolescents OR younger adolescents>older adolescents>all participants.  
• Discussion appears to focus more on existing data than the study findings. It would be helpful to expand on the study findings.  
• Use consistent terminology to describe the study population. Currently the article uses different terminology i.e. youngsters, young people, adolescents.  
• Use consistent terminology for the same construct. For example, abstract mentions self-comforting methods as a coping strategy whereas discussion mentions ‘calming methods’ as a coping strategy
• Replace volunteers with participants in “We recruited 16 volunteers in Mysore”
• In “India including 6 younger (12-15 years; 3 girls) and 10 older adolescents/ young adults (17-25 years; 5 girls)”, remove the number of girls from the description unless mentioned for any specific reason.  
• In “Older adolescents were recruited from ongoing birth cohort study”, name the ongoing birth cohort study.  
• In “The interviews were analysed to derive themes and emerging constructs related to stress and coping strategies”, mention the framework used for analyses of the data.  
• “Adolescents generally perceived stress in their daily lives”, the statement is vague and could be rephrased as “Adolescents generally experienced stress in their daily lives”.  
• It is unclear whether adolescents reported ‘robust’ coping strategies in “Adolescents reported that they had robust coping strategies” or whether the coping strategies were reported as ‘robust’ by the researchers.
• In “Abnormalities due to stress in physiology and psychological status during this transitional phase is likely to set lifestyle and risk trajectories in motion for future disease development”,  remove ‘lifestyle and’.  
• In “One of the key considerations for developing intervention”, change ‘for’ to ‘in’.  
• It is unclear what ‘this’ means in “One of the key considerations for developing interventions is to assess the need for this among adolescents through a deeper understanding of their perception of stress and stressors, and their in-built coping abilities.”  
• Introduce SRAVANA in the abstract as it may seem abrupt when mentioned only later in the introduction.  
• Change “The objectives were to explore adolescents’ perception of stress and stressors in their daily life, understand the strategies by which they cope with daily stresses, and identify the areas where they seek further support” to “The study objectives were to explore adolescents’ perception of stress and stressors in their daily life, understand the strategies they use to cope with daily stresses, and identify the areas where they seek further support”
• Suggest changing “The younger adolescents were recruited by word of mouth from among those known to existing contacts, which included collaborators of previous research projects and acquaintances and friends of former and current employees of our Research Unit. Adolescents who were interested in participating then contacted the research team directly” to “ Younger adolescents were recruited by word-of-mouth from existing networks including research collaborators of previous projects and community networks of former and current employees of our research unit. Interested adolescents directly contacted the research team to participate in the study”.  
• Suggest removing “After explaining the goals and objectives of the research”, as this is standard procedure that doesn't necessarily need to be mentioned.
• Suggest changing “the present study comprised 16 in-depth interviews (IDI) guided by a semi-structured interview schedule “ to “We conducted 16 in-depth interviews using a semi-structured interview schedule”; Also suggest replacing schedule with a guide.  
• Mention ‘semi-structured IDIs’ and not just IDIs in the following statement “Because of the potentially sensitive nature of the data, IDIs were chosen as the most appropriate method. Furthermore, IDI’s are more likely to give insights into adolescents’ experiences in a detailed manner that would not be feasible with a structured questionnaire.”; Remove ‘furthermore’. Suggest adding this because you may compare semi-structured interviews with structured interviews but not IDIs with structured interviews as IDIs may also be structured.  
• Suggest removing initials in “This guide was developed by the Mysore research team (GVK, SVJ, MK and KK) and qualitative researchers at the University of Southampton (MB and CHDF).”  
• Suggest replacing “The questions and probes in the guide were asked in a sequence to promote a logical and smooth flow of discussion” with “The questions and probes in the guide were asked sequentially to promote a smooth flow to the interview”.  
• Suggest changing “Recruitment of new participants was stopped when we arrived at the stage of data saturation when new themes stopped emerging” to “Recruitment of new participants was stopped when data saturation was reached and new themes stopped emerging”  
• Break up the long sentence: “All IDIs, except one which was conducted at a children’s hostel, were carried out at the HMH Research Unit, and by one male and two female investigators who were medical doctors and doctorate holders, and trained by experts in qualitative research methods.”
• In “All IDIs were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim; participants were anonymised by replacing names with codes”, I suggest replacing participants with interviews.  
• Remove initials of the transcriber
• The following statement is grammatically incorrect: “All the IDI transcripts were coded and analysed manually coded by TKN, SVJ and GVK”; Remove initials.  
• In “Direct quotes from the IDIs were selected”, remove ‘direct’.  
• Suggest changing “Direct quotes from the IDIs were selected and used in the manuscript to illustrate specific issues or pieces of information that the participant wished to convey” as the illustrations are not about what the participant wished to convey but what the researcher aimed to ask to fulfill research objectives. A possible replacement would be, “Illustrative quotes from the IDIs were selected and used in the manuscript to highlight specific issues or pieces of information on adolescents’ perceptions of stress, stressors and coping strategies”.
• Suggest replacing “Data from the IDI’s are presented below as themes and subthemes under three main headings related to stress and coping strategies” with “Major themes and subthemes from the study are presented below”
• Change heading to ‘stress and stressors’.  
• Add a comma after “In general adolescents perceived that they experience stress in their daily life”.  
• Replace ‘in’ their lives with ‘on’ their lives in the following: Despite viewing stress as a part of life, there was a definite indication of its undesirable impact in their lives.  
• Suggest changing “Family aspects were the most prominently indicated stressors especially among older adolescents” to “Family-related stressors were the most prominently indicated stressors especially among older adolescents”; The change is suggested because ‘family aspects’ as being a stressor appears to be vague.  
• Remove ‘the’ before adolescents in “Pressure from the family: The adolescents felt that being forced, either openly or implicitly”.  
• Change “socialise within extended families” to “socialise with extended families”.  
• Provide age next to illustrative quotes.  
• Suggest replacing “This was particularly highlighted by the two married participants (both girls)” with “This was particularly highlighted in interviews with two female participants who were married”.  
• It is unclear what ‘background stress’ means in “They felt that being chastised by the elders in the spouse’s family was an everyday background stress in their lives which led to constant displeasure”; suggest removing ‘background’ unless it is pertinent to the theme.  
• Replace “Stress was also created by” with “Stress was also experienced due to”.  
• Replace “time pressure” with “pressure to meet deadlines”.  
• Replace “our participants” with “study participants”.  
• Replace “Issues around romantic relationships, including the pressure of impressing their boyfriends/ girlfriends or painful breakups were also thought to cause stress in some older adolescents” with “Issues around romantic relationships, including pressure to impress their boyfriends/girlfriends or relationship breakups also caused stress in some older adolescents”.  
• In “Two younger adolescents mentioned that minor fights with other schoolmates were stressful as it might lead to castigation from parents or teachers”, clarify if the fights were reported as ‘minor’ by adolescents.  
• The following illustration seems incomplete: “It’s because both should have equal.... The thing is anyone would like to be at the top of the class, right? ....if one is not the topper... Just like that, both [of us] should get the same marks.... After putting in hard work and studying, if [we] don’t get marks then we feel …somewhat”.  
• Suggest using different terminology in “The most common feeling was the lack of nicer things..”.  
• Suggest replacing ‘gender dynamics’ with ‘gender-specific stressors’.  
• Remove voluntarily in the following statement: “Two out of the three young adolescent girls in the study voluntarily highlighted specific issues involving boys.”  
• Remove the following statement  “In both instances the participants felt that the situation was highly stressful.” as it is repetitive.
• Use ‘a’ instead of ‘Anger was the recurring feeling amongst most of the older adolescents.
• Change heading to ‘Coping and help-seeking’.  
• Suggest replacing insightful with aware in the following statement: “Generally the participants were insightful that being stressed was not good for them, and that they wanted relief from it almost immediately”.  
• Suggest replacing “The first [instinctive] response towards coping” with “The first [instinctive] coping response”.  
• The following statement is grammatically incorrect: “Some adolescents also mentioned that following the processes of distancing and reflection in sequence also led to choosing a specific coping strategy that worked best for them in that situation”. I suggest replacing it with “Some adolescents also mentioned that following the processes of distancing and reflection, they chose a specific coping strategy that worked best for them in that situation”.  
• Replace “distraction activities” with “engaging in distracting activities”.  
• Suggest replacing “also found help in spirituality.” With “also found spirituality to be helpful in coping with stress”.  
• Replace ‘in’ with ‘for’ in the following statement “Sharing their worries with others acted as an effective coping strategy in some of them”.  
• Replace “Sharing was mainly with friends in the older adolescents, and both friends and family in younger participants” with “Older adolescents shared their worries mainly with friends whereas younger participants shared them with both their friends and family”.  
• Suggest replacing “The adolescents thought that this may lead to an addictive behaviour on repeated stress” with “Adolescents thought that this may lead to addictive behaviours upon exposure to stress repeatedly”.  
• Replace ‘can’ with ‘could’ in the following statement: A few adolescents sought a regular visit to a youth centre where they can relax through activities or discuss their issues and come up with solutions.  
• The following statement is grammatically incorrect. I would suggest breaking it up into two statements and using consistent terminology i.e either young people, adolescents or youngsters and not all. “This study aimed at an in-depth understanding of stress and stressors among adolescents, we found that youngsters, irrespective of age and gender, perceived stress in daily life”.
• “support for the prompt relief from stress” is not clearly indicated in the results section.  
• The statement “Structured tools designed for specific situations and population may not identify small stressors and stresses which may have huge implications for their well-being” implies that the study aims to focus on and understand ‘small’ stressors which is not true to the scope of the study. It could be replaced with “Structured tools designed for specific contexts and population may not efficiently identify context-specific, nuanced stressors and stresses which may have major implications for the well-being of adolescents”.  
• Part of the following section is a better fit for Introduction “Adolescence is described as a period of ‘storm and stress’, owing to intense stress perception and reactivity characteristic of this age 4 . Widespread neuro-cognitive and behavioural changes and changing patterns of social interactions are thought to underlie this transitional phase. Adolescents form about 20% of the population in India, one of the largest percentages in the world 12 . Recent reports of increasing mental health issues, including depression and suicidal tendencies among youth may suggest an increasing prevalence or perception of stress 6 , 13 . Though nationally representative data on adolescent stress is not available, it can be anecdotally assumed that some amount of stress is universal in today’s adolescents. Structured tools designed for specific situations and population may not identify small stressors and stresses which may have huge implications for their well-being.”  
• In “Our study is one of few to use qualitative methods to understand the concerns around stress among adolescents in India”, I suggest replacing ‘concerns around stress’ with ‘experience of stress’.  
• Remove full stop in the following “ Several studies have highlighted that children and adolescents in India are under high pressure to perform well in academics 15 , 17 – 19 . which is a”.  
• It is unclear what the following statement is trying to say and would require rewording “Also, a female researcher interviewed most of the adolescent boys, and due to the nature of the research topic, boys at this stage of life might not have felt comfortable enough to share certain types of information”.  
• Remove ‘to’ in the following statement: “This may help to change the lifestyle trajectories of those adolescents who may resort to risk behaviours as an escape from stress.”

Reviewer Expertise: Global mental health, complex intervention development and testing, addictions

Reviewer Status

Alongside their report, reviewers assign a status to the article:

Reviewer Reports

• Abhijit Nadkarni , London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Sangath, Porvorim, India Soumya Singh , Sangath, Porvorim, India
• Shilpa Aggarwal , Deakin University, Geelong, Australia; Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi, India

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Stress in young people

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What is stress?

Stress is a normal and healthy part of our nervous system. However, too much stress can be difficult to manage and become problematic.

Everyone experiences stress for different reasons. This can vary for different generations.

Research has shown that stress in teenagers and young adults is higher than in older Australians. The good news is that most of us can usually manage the stress caused by issues with relationships, finances, and health.

Stress is a natural human response to the pressure you feel from challenging or dangerous situations. In healthy amounts, it motivates us to respond to the challenging thing. In unhelpful amounts, stress can lead to less useful coping strategies like avoidance.

Common symptoms and signs of too much stress include:

• feeling anxious or overwhelmed
• feeling wound-up or worried
• feeling irritable
• disturbed sleep
• appetite loss
• muscle tension
• an upset stomach
• difficulty concentrating

Stress can last for a long time or overwhelm your coping abilities. Stress can have a negative impact on every aspect of your life including your:

• relationships
• physical and mental health

Unmanaged stress can contribute to mental illness .

Stress and young people

Research shows that young Australian adults are more stressed than older generations. They are also more likely to report mental health concerns than older Australians.

There are differences in the high levels of distress reported in 2020-2021 in younger and older Australians. These figures are:

• 9% of Australians aged 65 to 85 years report high levels of distress
• 28% of Australians aged 16 to 34 years report high levels of distress

There are many reasons why young people will experience stress. These include:

• academic pressure
• emotional and physical abuse
• family dynamics and violence
• personal finances
• substance abuse
• trying to keep a healthy lifestyle

How do I manage stress?

There are ways that you can reduce feelings of stress.

If you are feeling stressed, it is important to try and find the cause of your stress. First of all, find out what is stressing you. Consider what you can change and what you can’t control.

What can I do?

Do things you enjoy regularly, even if you don’t feel like doing them.

This may include:

• being with people who care about you
• listening to music
• walking in nature

You may also be able to help keep stress levels down by:

• recognising unhelpful sources of stress — including pressures you place on yourself — before they become a bigger problem
• thinking about changes you can make to improve your situation and change the way you behave

To manage feelings of stress, you can:

• practice deep breathing, meditation and other relaxation techniques
• practice positive self-talk
• write in a 'stress diary' to record when you feel stressed and why
• exercise regularly
• eat a healthy diet
• avoid smoking
• reduce alcohol and caffeine intake
• avoid overworking

It can be difficult to talk about stress with your school, college, university, or employer. However, if you are feeling stressed about work or study, they may be able to provide support.

Talk to others if you can — you may well have family and friends who are willing to help.

Keep things in perspective. Don’t underestimate yourself. However, if you cannot control something, try to direct your energy elsewhere.

Seeking help

Many people need professional help to make lasting changes to reduce their stress levels. This may include talking to your doctor .

Your doctor may recommend stress management classes. They can also help diagnose any mental health issues or refer you to a psychologist . By addressing the cause of your stress, they can help provide you with the best advice and treatment.

There are also programs and resources available to young people experiencing stress and mental health issues.

More information

• Find out more about stress management , burnout and chronic stress .
• Visit Beyond Blue for tips on how to reduce stress.
• Visit the Australian Psychological Society for further resources and tips for managing everyday stress.

Learn more here about the development and quality assurance of healthdirect content .

Last reviewed: July 2022

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Frequently Asked Questions on Stress and its effects on the Youth

Ques: How can people get rid away from Stress?

Ans: Stress is like homework. If you do not address a single day, it will continuously pile up and create a huge problem. If you let the problem pile up, you will feel exhausted and stressed. The best solution is to address the issue one at a time. Do not let the Stress to get overwhelm you.

Ques: What are the other healthier ways should adopt to reduce Stress?

Ans: Coping with a problem one at a time greatly helps, but there are some situations where it becomes difficult to cope with a problem, for example, the death of a loved one. In this circumstance, a person needs time to accept reality and truth. It would help if you tried to understand your feeling and manage them accordingly. You can take help and assistance from your close family and friend.

Ques: Does exercising play a crucial role in the reduction of Stress?

Ans: Many experts have pointed out that exercises do wonders in times of Stress. Even a ten minutes dance can soothe your mind and body. This is true and scientific for people who are coping with Stress.

Ques: Is Stress common?

Ans: There is not a single person who does not experience, Stress in his life. It is omnipresent in human life. People try to hide the Stress, but that does not mean they do not experience it. Data suggests that Stress has become in the very young child. However, the amount of Stress and coping strategies varies from person to person.

Ques: How do introverts cope with Stress?

Ans: Extroverts have a better chance, or rather an advantage, in dealing with Stress as they can open up easily about the problem to the public. Introverts feel harder to communicate their problem to the world, but the tools introverts use to cope with Stress are similar, like reading, stress therapy, and exercise. They communicate their problems with fellow introverts and try to assist each other in addressing them.

Ques: Does Stress give rise to medical issues?

Ans: Persistent Stress gives rise to several health issues. That includes persistent headaches that would increase the severity. Other health issues involve rapid heartbeats, insomnia, and chest pain. It is being noticed that those who are under continuous Stress give birth to several heart issues.

Ques: Is medication useful in relieving Stress?

Ans: In usual cases, it is not advised to take medication during Stress. This is because the medication will lead to avoiding the issues at hand. There is another possibility that you might develop tolerance power for the medication and demand a higher dosage. Higher dosages will lead to side effects of the medicine.

Ques: Does therapy useful?

Ans: It does. You can try self-therapy, which consists coping mechanism for Stress. However, therapy is only affordable for some, but in serious cases, therapy is the best treatment.

Ques: Elucidate some of the symptoms generated due to Stress.

Ans: Symptoms generated due to Stress are back pain, continuous headaches, lower energy, and sleep. It will create turbulence in your work-life balance and will lower your productivity.

Ques: Is it true that Stress leads to weight gain?

Ans: There is little evidence to link between weight gain and Stress, but a significant correlation exists. Some people resort to overeating and smoking also. A significant amount of change is noticed in their lifestyle behavior.

Ques: Does it ever get better?

Ans: All problems discussed related to Stress are reversible. To get out of the Stress, follow the correct techniques and strategies. Remember, seeking help in a bad time is not a bad idea. Family and friends are always there to help you in troubled times. It would help if you did not doubt their intention and yourself.

Ques: Which are some of the best yoga poses to relieve Stress?

Ans: Some of the yoga asanas that help in reducing Stress are:

• Sukhasana (Easy Pose)
• Ananda Balasana (Happy Baby Pose)
• Uttanasana (Standing Forwand Bend)
• Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend)
• Balaasana (Child pose)
• Garudasana (Eagle Pose)
• Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose)

The recent covid-19 pandemic has fuelled the debate on mental health. It has increased Stress among Youth and all ages of people. There is an immense need to promote mental health at the grassroots level and end the stigmatization of the problem.

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A Study of Causes of Stress and Stress Management among Youth

2018, IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences

Stress is a condition of mental pressure for particular individual facing problems from envi­ronmental and social well-being which leads to so many diseases. Young age is the critical period because at this time youth faces lots of changes in his/her life. They are expected to be the elites in the society. Thus, they should enhance their stress management abilities so as to live a healthy life after entering the society. When a child enters into the youth age, they need to not only adapt themselves to the new life and new environment but also be familiar with many new people, events, and things. The life stress on them is considerable. Therefore, understanding the sources of stress among them and how they can cope with the stress is very important. The researcher found that the stress mainly comes from academic tests, interpersonal relations, relationship problems, life changes, and career exploration. Such stress may usually cause psychological, physical, and behavioral problems. T...

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCE RESEARCH, IDEAS AND INNOVATIONS IN TECHNOLOGY

Ijariit Journal , sai dheeraj

Stress is a physical, mental or emotion factor which causes mental tension. Everyone needs stress free life irrespective of their life span. But how many do live stress-free life is the big question now days? Stress has become a common worry for every individual in this present generation people. Mainly students are facing lots of stress from different factors and are not able to control their stress levels and suffer with some health issues which are a huge damage for the younger minds of this generation, which in turn damages the new ideologies which are to be generated as the nation's development is in the hands of young minds. The main objective of the study is to find the stress levels and reasons of stress and the ability of handling stress among young adults (17-22 years) and the sample size is 84 where 64 males and 24 females are responded for the survey and data is collected through primary data collection method with a questionnaire of 25 questions and the results found the factors and level of handling stress among them.

International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology IJSRST

India comprises with the second largest population of the youth in the world. Various kind of studies throughout the world states that the students pursuing professional courses like medical, dental, engineering are likely to be much stressed than that of the other students. A student taking excessive stress can in future have problems like depression that would affect his intellectual. There was a study conducted from September 2011 to February 2012 and this was conducted among medical, dental and engineering students in the urban area of Sangli district, Maharashtra, India. Out of 1,224 students, 299 (24.4%) experienced stress. Students from all the three field had been undergoing through stress and the main factor was the academic stress. The factors giving rise to the stress may be disintegrating family bond and relationship, work pressure, poor nutrition, lack of rest, social environment. The youth in the country constitutes the age group of 10-24 years and are the future of our country. Nearly 10-30 percent of youths in India suffer from stress and this affects them specifically and the stress has a long lasting impact on youth. They are not able to come out easily from this mental Trauma. Also due to the stress they suffer, they are not able to have a proper diet and this result in many neurological and mental disorders. Stress among youths is nowadays a matter of concern for their parents, teachers and family members. Many a times in life, a situation comes where youth go through stress may be due to the examinations, peer pressure and friendship and they make a bundle of it in their minds and goes through stress. Several youngsters in stress consume alcohol, drugs that affect their life. Through this research paper I will try to examine the impact of stress among the youths and its remedy.

DrMeenu Pandey

Increasing stress among the young generation is an alarming situation for us. It has been observed that the level of stress has invaded all age groups be it job professionals, college going students or school going students. This article focuses on the understanding of stress, its symptoms , direct and indirect effects and the suggestions & tips to overcome stress related problems with the help of stress management tools especially among students of undergraduate program. This research has been done on one hundred students of AISECT University with a standardized questionnaireof Barreca& Hepler (2000) using SPSS research methodology.

International Journal of Academic Research and Development

Janet Gonmei

Youth is a developmental phase of transition to adulthood, primarily involving education, career and social and personal relationships. It is the time when they get all kinds of exposures of life as an adult. Individuals at this stage are dynamic and full of vigor and are generally assumed to be physically strong and healthy. However, youth being a transitional phase, challenges are inevitable. The purpose of this paper was to assess the level of stress and to identify the major factors contributing to stress among student youth. The study utilized the Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) to assess the stress level. The result indicated that students experience a moderate level of stress which was primarily contributed by academic factor.

https://www.ijhsr.org/IJHSR_Vol.9_Issue.4_April2019/IJHSR_Abstract.020.html

International Journal of Health Sciences and Research (IJHSR)

The students of 8 th and 9 th standards belong to adolescents age group. Adolescence could be a bridge between childhood and adulthood. It is the time of rapid growth and maturity, discovering self, defining values. Objectives-To assess the stressors. To assess the level of stressors. To find out the association between stressors among secondary school students with selected demographic variables. Methodology-Quantitative approach and cross-sectional descriptive study design was used for this study. The study was conducted in English medium secondary schools on 600 secondary school students from selected schools of Karad city. Non probability convenient sampling technique was used. The self prepared likert scale consisting of 40 structured items were used for data collection. Content validity of the tool was done by experts. The reliability of the tool was calculated to be 0.985 for stressors scale indicating degree of stability. Results-Result shows that secondary school students face stressors at moderate to high level. There was significant association between academic, intrapersonal, learning and teaching, group social-related stressors and education of father. Academic, interpersonal, intrapersonal learning and teaching, group social-related stressors and habits of father and age of child at 1% level of significance. Interpersonal-related stressors and religion of child, habits of father at 5% level of significance. There was correlation between sub-scales of stressors perceived by secondary school students at 1% level of significance. Conclusion-Secondary school students were facing stressors. They have Academic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Learning and Teaching, Group Social-Related stressors at moderate to high level.

Sapienza: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

angelie gomez

This study specifically aimed to make a plan of action on how to reduce the stress level of the Senior High School Students. In order to make a feasible action plan, the researchers determined the stress level and the coping strategies of the male and female students respectively. The researchers used the descriptive method of research. A total of 82 students were the respondents of the study. Adopted questionnaires were utilized in measuring the perceived level of stress and sources of stress of the students. Results showed that both male and female students had an average level of stress. The level of stress of both female and male students is average for academic and financial sources. Moreover, the female students had low level of stress for psychological and health related stressors while the male students had average level for the said stressors. In addition, the results revealed that male and female students had different coping strategies in dealing with stress. Female stude...

vindhya shukla

Stress is the emotional and physical strain caused by our response to present from the outside world. Stress is a part of today living. In our daily lives we are often exposed to situations that produce stress. However if our stress level is too high it can result in serious medical and social problems. Any event or Stress at work resulting from increasing become a prominent and pervading feature of the modern organization. Stress as opined by Robinson (2007) is a pressure of adverse influence, circumstance that disturbs the natural physiological balance of the body. The research entitled Study of stress management practices adopted by senior secondary students was formulated with the objective to study the stress management strategies adopted by the students. The sample consisted of 100 class 12th female stu Lakhimpur Kheri (U.P). The tool used for the study was a self structured stress scale consisting items on stress management practices. The result was analyzed on the basis of f...

International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering

Dr. AMRUTA BHUSKUTE

Vishal Dogra

Background: Stress is a natural feeling of not being able to cope with specific demands and events. It is a situation that triggers a particular biological response. It could be an unavoidable and inevitable experience of life and is closely related with human striving for excellence in the complex world. Objective: This study attempts to assess the level of perceived stress among adolescents studying in college (Akhnoor), Jammu. Method: The sample consisted of 100 students (50 males & 50 females). Age range of the subjects was selected from (17-19) years and were selected through random sampling technique. For assessment Perceived stress scale (PSS) was used. The informed consent was taken from all the participants. Results & conclusion: Male adolescents were more prone to the stressful situations than the female adolescents and the reasons for stressful situations because of career security, academic work load, economic issues in the family, burden of responsibility with increasin...

Zainab Sisawala

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Academic stress and academic burnout in adolescents: a moderated mediating model

Associated data.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

This study aims to investigate the relationship and mechanisms of action among academic stress, academic anxiety, academic self-efficacy, and academic burnout among adolescents.

A study of 929 Chinese adolescents (53.71% males, mean age = 11.94 years, SD = 0.77) was conducted using the Study Stress Questionnaire, Academic Anxiety Subscale, Junior Middle School Students’ Learning Weariness Scale, and the Academic Self-efficacy Questionnaire.

①Academic stress was significantly and positively correlated with academic anxiety and academic burnout, and significantly and negatively correlated with academic self-efficacy. ②Academic anxiety partially mediated the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout. ③Academic self-efficacy significantly moderated the direct effect of academic stress on academic burnout, and higher academic self-efficacy could buffer the negative effect of academic stress. ④Academic self-efficacy significantly moderated the second half of the mediated model’s path (academic anxiety → academic burnout), that is, low academic self-efficacy amplified the risk effect of academic anxiety on academic burnout.

Academic anxiety partially mediates the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout, and this mediating role is moderated by academic self-efficacy.

• - Academic stress can positively predict academic burnout.
• - This finding suggests that academic self-efficacy can reduce the association between academic stress and academic burnout and enhance the association between academic anxiety and academic burnout.
• - Helping people gain a deeper understanding of the factors associated to academic burnout.
• - Helping people to make more reasonable interventions to adolescents who have academic burnout.

Introduction

Academic burnout is a persistent, negative, learning-related psychological state that occurs primarily in students ( Zhang et al., 2007 ) and consists of three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, outside of study, and reduced personal achievement ( Lin and Huang, 2014 ). In China, academic tiresome is a more colloquial expression for academic burnout, and the three manifestations of academic tiresome included in academic tiresome cognition, academic tiresome emotion, and academic tiresome behavior, which are three dimensions similar to academic burnout ( Zhao, 2019 ). Also, academic burnout is measured by an instrument similar to academic tiresome ( Yavuz and Dogan, 2014 ).

Chinese adolescents currently suffer from more severe academic burnout. Results of a survey conducted by the China Care for the Next Generation Working Committee in 2020 showed that more than 30% of elementary school students were bored with school and more than 70% of adolescent students have academic burnout, and many students experienced severe burnout or even refused to go to school due to the home quarantine during the epidemic that interrupted the normal rhythm of school attendance for adolescents ( Sun et al., 2021 ; Swords et al., 2021 ). Regarding the impact of academic burnout on adolescents, current research has confirmed that academic weariness can lead to problematic behaviors such as absenteeism and school dropout ( Wang et al., 2019 ), which can severely affect the entire family ( Shen et al., 2012 ). In addition, some variables closely related to academic burnout are influential factors of adolescent mental health problems ( Cheraghian et al., 2016 ), such as academic burnout can predict adolescent depression ( Salmela-Aro et al., 2009 ) and neuroticism ( Murberg and Bru, 2007 ). Adolescents, especially junior high school students, as a group just entering adolescence, have significant and rapid development and transition in psychological functioning ( Gallagher et al., 2014 ). Chinese adolescents are prone to low academic control ( Jose and Weir, 2013 ), burnout ( Jiang et al., 2021 ), and school refusal behavior ( Boussand et al., 2021 ) due to the number of courses they take, the difficulty of the curriculum, the pressure to advance to higher education ( Dotterer et al., 2009 ; Lin, 2013 ), and high parental expectations ( Huang et al., 2018 ). Therefore, this study aims to investigate the causes and mechanisms of adolescents’ academic burnout and to provide theoretical and empirical support for solving the problem of academic burnout.

Academic stress and academic burnout

Previous studies have shown that students’ own poor learning foundation, low self-evaluation, and lack of interest and initiative in learning can lead to academic tiresome ( Li, 2009 ; Zheng, 2013 ). Academic stress, an important stressor for adolescents ( Ye et al., 2019 ; Nagamitsu et al., 2020 ), may be one of the factors influencing academic burnout. Although moderate stress can improve task performance ( Henderson et al., 2012 ; Lin et al., 2022 ) and productivity ( Kumari, 2021 ) in humans or animals, studies have shown that excessive academic stress not only causes negative cognitive attitudes toward academics ( Savarese et al., 2019 ), affects students’ academic students’ performance ( Khan et al., 2013 ), and reduces students’ academic performance ( Canup, 2016 ); behaviorally leading to bad habits such as academic procrastination ( Niazov et al., 2022 ), cell phone addiction ( Shen et al., 2021 ), and also emotionally inducing depression ( Jiang et al., 2021 ), reduced mental health ( Aloia and McTigue, 2019 ), and even suicidal tendencies ( Okechukwu et al., 2022 ). Thus, academic stress can affect adolescents in cognitive, behavioral, and emotional terms. Jessor et al. (2010) problem behavior theory states that problem behaviors (behavioral systems) can be directly influenced by individual internal personality factors (personality systems) as well as perceived external environmental factors (environmental perception systems). When an individual perceives academic stress, this perception can directly affect the adolescent’s behavioral system and produce burnout behaviors. The Transactional model of stress and coping (TSC) ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ) also argues that individuals cognitively assess stress after perceiving it. After feeling academic stress, adolescents may react negatively to this stress if they assess it as a threat ( Walburg, 2014 ), which, in turn, may lead to academic burnout. In addition, there are also studies that show that academic stress is one of the factors that lead to academic burnout ( Gonzálvez et al., 2018 ). Based on the above arguments, academic stress is one of the important factors that lead to students’ academic burnout. Therefore, this study will examine the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout in junior high school students and propose hypothesis H1: Academic stress in adolescents positively predicts academic burnout.

Mediating effect of academic anxiety

Academic anxiety is a negative emotional state that students experience more frequently in academic situations ( Gogol et al., 2017 ), encompasses anxiety about the school and learning environment and anxiety about academic activities (e.g., learning specific knowledge, exams, etc.) ( Levine, 2008 ), and is a mediating variable between academic stress and negative academic performance ( Nagpal and Sinha, 2016 ). On the one hand, as a typical negative academic emotion ( Pekrun et al., 2002 ), academic anxiety can directly predict the occurrence of academic burnout ( García-Fernández et al., 2011 ; Tao and Zhao, 2018 ; Pan and Zhang, 2021 ), and the higher the level of anxiety, the more individuals have manifestations of academic burnout, such as academic burnout ( Fernández-Castillo, 2021 ), school refusal ( Seçer and Ulaş, 2020 ), feelings of helplessness ( Raufelder et al., 2018 ), and poor academic performance ( Barbosa-Camacho et al., 2022 ). Processing efficiency theory states ( Eysenck et al., 1987 ; Eysenck and Calvo, 1992 ) that highly anxious individuals are more likely to use negative learning strategies during learning, devoting limited cognitive resources to activities that are irrelevant to the learning task at hand, and choosing to allocate their attention to more irrelevant stimuli ( Caviola et al., 2021 ). This is precisely in line with the behavioral manifestations of high academic burnout individuals, who appear to be mentally and behaviorally avoidant of the current learning task or learning process ( Zhu et al., 2022 ). Therefore, we hypothesize that academic anxiety can influence academic burnout. On the other hand, anxiety as a physiological and psychological response triggered by stressors ( Colich and McLaughlin, 2022 ), and stressful life events are a major stressor ( Young and Dietrich, 2015 ). The higher the academic stress of adolescents, the higher their anxiety levels ( Leung et al., 2010 ; Trevethan et al., 2022 ). Empirical studies have shown that adolescents increase academic stress ( Park et al., 2012 ; Sun et al., 2012 ) and thus anxiety levels ( Huberty, 2009 ) due to high homework loads, high expectations of teachers and parents, and lower academic performance. Therefore, we hypothesize that academic stress can influence academic anxiety. Regarding the emergence of this mechanism, the “context-process-outcome model” ( Roeser et al., 1996 ) states that situational factors tend to influence individuals’ behavior by affecting their internal psychological processes. While stress is a hypothetical state in response to situational stimuli ( Sarason, 1984 ), learning anxiety and academic burnout correspond to the psychological processes and outcomes of this model, respectively. We hypothesized that this mechanism of influence of academic stress would apply equally to academic burnout. For academic anxiety as a mediating variable, Fiorilli et al.'s (2020) study of school burnout in adolescents aged 13–17 showed that academic anxiety can mediate between trait emotional intelligence Trait emotional intelligence and school burnout. Dong and Liang et al. studied the causes of school burnout in junior high school students and found that academic stress was a mediating variable between anxiety and school burnout ( Dong et al., 2021 ). In summary, academic anxiety may act as a mediating variable in the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout; therefore, this study proposes hypothesis H2: academic anxiety plays a mediating role in the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout.

Moderating effect of academic self-efficacy

Academic self-efficacy (ASE) is the judgment and confidence in an individual’s ability to believe that he or she can successfully complete a specific academic task at a specific stage of learning ( Schunk, 1991 ) and is the degree of belief in achieving the desired academic level ( Weißenfels et al., 2022 ). Although academic anxiety affects the performance of academic burnout in middle school students, processing efficiency theory ( Michael, 1982 ; Eysenck and Calvo, 1992 ) suggests that the relationship between anxiety levels and behavioral performance can be influenced by control or self-regulatory systems, and academic self-efficacy has the potential to act as a moderating variable for academic anxiety and academic burnout. Firstly, academic self-efficacy may play a moderating role between academic stress and academic burnout. First, according to Bandura’s self-efficacy theory ( Bandura, 1977 ), individuals are able to be moderated by their self-efficacy when they face psychological and behavioral changes in response to stimuli, so individuals with high academic self-efficacy will have less burnout emotions and behaviors in response to academic stress. Second, studies on Chinese students have shown that self-efficacy can effectively regulate the relationship between stress and negative emotions such as depression, and stress and mental health ( Schönfeld et al., 2019 ); studies on self-efficacy regulation of stress and adolescent life satisfaction showed that adolescents with high academic self-efficacy showed higher life satisfaction in the face of stress ( Moksnes et al., 2019 ), whereas individuals with low self-efficacy showed higher life satisfaction in the face of stress. In addition, according to TSC ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ), academic self-efficacy can be used as a second evaluation mechanism for adolescents facing academic stress, and when academic self-efficacy is low, individuals are more likely to When academic self-efficacy is low, individuals are more likely to assess academic stress as a threatening factor and thus become academic burnout. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that academic self-efficacy can moderate the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout, and academic self-efficacy can buffer the reinforcing effect of academic stress on academic burnout.

Furthermore, academic self-efficacy is considered to be a predictor and protective factor for adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problems ( Valle et al., 2006 ; Zee et al., 2017 ). Therefore, the relationship between academic anxiety as an internalized academic emotion ( Lahdelma et al., 2021 ) and academic burnout may also be moderated by academic self-efficacy. First, research has shown that self-efficacy moderates the relationship between anxiety and academic performance ( Barrows et al., 2013 ), and a decline in academic performance is one of the significant manifestations of academic burnout ( Fu et al., 2002 ). Second, according to the control value theory of academic emotions ( Pekrun, 2000 ; Pekrun et al., 2002 ), control cognition, which contains individuals’ expectations of the future ( Roseman, 1996 ), is the main source of students’ academic emotions, and self-efficacy, as a control factor of cognition ( Stenmark et al., 2021 ), can influence students’ academic emotions. Whereas in the academic life of adolescents, academic anxiety itself can affect academic performance and academic achievement ( Hooda and Saini, 2017 ), individuals with low academic self-efficacy increase their assessment of threat ( Putwain and Symes, 2012 ), further leading to academic burnout. Also according to the problem behavior theory ( Jessor et al., 2010 ), the environmental perception system can interact with the personality system to produce problem behaviors, and academic self-efficacy, as a structure in the Personal Belief part of the personality system, can interact with academic anxiety, which can lead to academic burnout. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that academic self-efficacy can regulate the relationship between academic anxiety and academic burnout and buffer the reinforcing effect of academic anxiety on academic burnout. Based on the above analysis, this study proposes hypothesis H3: academic self-efficacy plays a moderating role between academic stress and academic burnout; specifically, the academic burnout of adolescents with high academic self-efficacy is more influenced by academic stress than those with low academic self-efficacy; this study proposes hypothesis H4: academic self-efficacy plays a moderating role between academic anxiety and academic burnout; specifically, the academic burnout of adolescents with high academic self-efficacy is more influenced by academic stress than those with low academic self-efficacy. Specifically, adolescents with high academic self-efficacy were more affected by academic anxiety than adolescents with low academic self-efficacy. Based on the problem behavior theory and transactional model, this study constructed a moderated mediation model (see Figure 1 ) based on the above assumptions as a way to explore the effect of learning stress on academic burnout and its mechanism of action.

Moderated Mediating Model.

Materials and methods

Design and procedure.

We applied a survey design to achieve our research objectives. We used a whole-group sampling method and approached a junior high school in Shandong Province to collect data from their students, a sample of adolescents from this junior high school that was well represented. Participants were invited to provide their voluntary consent and then complete these measures. Participants did not provide any personal information that would allow researchers or organizations to identify them. Participants were led into the school’s microcomputer room by a schoolteacher and completed an electronic questionnaire on a computer after a trained master examiner read the instructions. All participation was voluntary, and each participant received a ballpoint pen as payment at the end of the test.

Participants

Using the whole-group sampling method, all students in grades 6 and 7 of a junior high school in Shandong Province, a total of 982 adolescents, were selected to complete the questionnaire survey, and a total of 929 valid questionnaires were returned, with a valid return rate of 94.60%. Among them, 499 (53.71%) were male and 430 (46.29%) were female; 488 were in the first grade and 441 were in the second grade, aged 11 to 15 (11.94 ± 0.77). These adolescents came from urban, rural and rural areas, and it can be confirmed that the sample drawn is highly representative of the adolescent population.

Academic stress

This study used the study stress questionnaire for middle school students ( Xu et al., 2010 ) to measure adolescents’ academic stress. Twenty-one questions were included in the scale, including 4 dimensions of parents’ pressure, self-pressure, teacher pressure, and sociality pressure. The scale consists of 21 questions, including 4 dimensions: parents’ pressure, self-pressure, teacher pressure, and sociality pressure. Sample questions include parents pressure “My parents nag me a lot and want me to be an outstanding person,” self pressure “I think that going on to higher education is my only way out,” and teacher pressure “When I cannot answer the teacher’s questions, the teacher will criticize me. When I cannot answer the teacher’s questions, the teacher will criticize me,” sociality pressure “When I am worried, I feel that I do not have a friend to talk to.” The scale is scored on a 5-point scale, with 1 point for “Completely Not Conforming” and 5 points for “Completely Conforming.” The total Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.95. We conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on 21 items; the average variance extracted (AVE) of each second-order factor is between 0.480 and 0.607, and the composite reliability (CR) is between 0.781 and 0.903. The results of the model showed that Chi-square/df = 6.233, p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.075, SRMR = 0.042, GFI = 0.882, AGFI = 0.851, CFI = 0.922, TLI = 0.911, indicating that the results of CFA had good fitting indicators.

Academic anxiety

In this study, the academic anxiety subscale of the Mental Health Diagnostic Test (MHT), adapted by Zhou Bucheng ( Zheng et al., 2004 ), was used to measure adolescents’ academic anxiety. The scale consists of 15 questions (e.g., “Do you always think about tomorrow’s homework when you go to bed at night?”). The scale is scored on a two-point scale, with “Yes” scoring one and “No” scoring zero, with higher scores indicating higher levels of anxiety. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale was 0.86. We conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on 21 items; the average variance extracted (AVE) is 0.299, and the composite reliability (CR) is 0.852. The results of the model showed that Chi-square/df = 4.297, p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.060, SRMR = 0.043, GFI = 0.946, AGFI = 0.926, CFI = 0.926, TLI = 0.11, indicating that the results of CFA had good fitting indicators.

Academic burnout

This study used Junior Middle School Students’ Learning Weariness Scale ( Zhao, 2019 ) to measure adolescents’ academic tiresome. The questionnaire has 17 items including 3 dimensions of academic tiresome cognition, academic tiresome emotion, and academic tiresome behavior. Sample questions such as academic tiresome cognition “I do not get any pleasure from studying,” academic tiresome behavior “I often try to avoid studying,” and academic tiresome emotion “Studying often makes me feel physically and mentally exhausted.” The scale was scored on a 5-point Likert scale, with all positive scores, one score for “Not at all” and five scores for “Fully,” and the higher the total score, the more serious the degree of academic burnout. The total Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.95. We conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on 21 items; the average variance extracted (AVE) of each second-order factor is between 0.571 and 0.670, and the composite reliability (CR) is between 0.890 and 0.903, indicating that the aggregation validity is high. The results of the model showed that Chi-square/df = 7.114, p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.081, SRMR = 0.046, GFI = 0.906, AGFI = 0.874, CFI = 0.938, TLI = 0.927, indicating that the results of CFA had good fitting indicators.

Academic self-efficacy

The academic self-efficacy questionnaire, developed by Pintrich and De Groot (1990) and revised in Chinese by Liang (2000) , is a 22-item scale containing two dimensions: self-efficacy of academic ability and self-efficacy of academic behavior. Sample questions such as “I believe I have the ability to do well in my studies” and “I always like to check whether I have mastered what I have learned through self-questioning when studying” are scored on a 5-point scale. The higher the total score, the stronger the academic self-efficacy. The total Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.94. We conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on 21 items; the average variance extracted (AVE) of each second-order factor is between 0.448 and 0.634, and the composite reliability (CR) is between 0.853 and 0.950. The results of the model showed that Chi-square/df = 7.212, p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.082, SRMR = 0.064, GFI = 0.865, AGFI = 0.834, CFI = 0.922, TLI = 0.912, indicating that the results of CFA had good fitting indicators.

Data analysis

First, the common method deviation test was performed using SPSS 22.0, and descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were performed for the main variables. The common method bias test calculated according to Harman’s one-way test showed that there were 10 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. The first principal component explained 29.89% of the total variance, which is below the critical value of 40%, so it can be concluded that there is no significant common method bias problem in this study. After that, Model 15 in SPSS macro program process v3.3 prepared by Hayes and Scharkow (2013) was used to perform the moderated mediation model test and Bootstrap method (2000 replicate samples with confidence interval set to 95%) was used to test the significance of the mediation effect.

Descriptive and correlation analyses

As shown in Table 1 , the results of descriptive statistics and correlation analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between academic stress, academic anxiety, and academic burnout, and a significant negative correlation between academic self-efficacy and academic stress, academic anxiety, and academic burnout.

Average, standard deviation, and correlation coefficient of each variable ( N = 929).

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, and *** p < 0.001.

Mediation effect test

In the Process macro proposed by Hayes and Scharkow (2013) , the mediating effect of learning anxiety was tested using Model 4. The Bootstrap test (a statistical method for multiple repetition sampling) was chosen and set with repetitions of 2000 and 95% confidence intervals. The results showed that the predictive effect of academic stress on academic burnout was significant ( β = 0.38, t = 13.40, p < 0.001), and the predictive effect of academic stress on academic burnout remained significant when the mediating variable academic anxiety was introduced ( β = 0.32, t = 9.74, p < 0.001), academic stress had a significant predictive effect on academic anxiety ( β = 0.50, t = 17.98, p < 0.001), and academic anxiety had a significant positive predictive effect on academic burnout ( β = 0.12, t = 3.70, p < 0.001). The upper and lower limits of Bootstrap 95% confidence intervals for the direct effect of academic stress on academic burnout and the mediating effect of academic anxiety did not contain 0 (see Table 2 ), indicating that academic stress not only directly predicted academic burnout Academic anxiety partially mediates between academic stress and academic burnout, with a mediating effect value of 0.06 and 95% confidence interval of (0.03, 0.10), indicating that the mediating effect of academic anxiety was significant, accounting for 15.79% of the total effect and 18.75% of the direct effect value.

Total, direct and indirect effects.

Academic stress and academic burnout: testing for moderated-mediation

Model 15 in the process macro program prepared by Hayes was used to test for a moderating mediating effect. The results showed that equation 1 was significant overall ( F (1, 927) = 323.24, p < 0.001) and learning stress was a significant positive predictor of learning anxiety (β = 0.50, t = 17.98, p < 0.001). Equation 2 was significant overall ( F (5, 923) = 169.84, p < 0.001), with learning stress significantly and positively predicting academic burnout ( β = 0.13, t = 4.86, p < 0.001) and learning anxiety significantly and positively predicting academic burnout ( β = 0.07, t = 2.83, p < 0.01), thus learning anxiety mediated the relationship between learning stress and academic burnout. The interaction term between academic stress and academic self-efficacy was a significant negative predictor of academic burnout ( β = −0.08, t = −3.05, p < 0.01), and the interaction term between academic anxiety and academic self-efficacy was a significant positive predictor of academic burnout ( β = 0.05, t = 2.05, p < 0.05), indicating a significant moderating effect of academic self-efficacy. The results are shown in Table 3 .

The moderated-mediating effect of academic stress on academic burnout.

After standardizing the study variables, the study divided the subjects into low ( Z ≦ -1 SD ) and high ( Z ≧ 1 SD ) subgroups according to the standardized scores controlling for academic self-efficacy for simple slope analysis. First, we explored how academic self-efficacy moderated the direct effect of academic stress on academic burnout. The results found (see Figure 2 ) that the predictive effect of academic stress on academic burnout was significant for adolescents when the level of academic self-efficacy was low ( simple slope = 0.23, SE = 0.04, p < 0.001) and insignificant for adolescents when the level of academic self-efficacy was high ( simple slope = 0.06, SE = 0.04, p = 0.10). This indicates that the lower the academic self-efficacy of middle school students, the greater the effect of academic stress on academic burnout, and conversely, at high levels of academic self-efficacy, the effect of academic stress on academic burnout was not significant.

Model of the test for simple slopes showing the moderating influence of academic self-efficacy of the association between academic stress and academic burnout.

The study further went on to analyze the moderating effect of academic self-efficacy on the relationship between academic anxiety and academic burnout in the second half of the mediated model path (see Figure 3 ). It was found that for middle school students with low academic self-efficacy levels, academic anxiety was not a significant predictor of academic burnout ( simple slope = 0.02, SE = 0.04, p = 0.58); for adolescents with high academic self-efficacy, academic anxiety was a significant positive predictor of academic burnout ( simple slope = 0.13, SE = 0.04, p = 0.0004). This suggests that the higher the academic self-efficacy of middle school students, the greater the effect of learning anxiety on academic burnout may be, and on the contrary, at low levels of academic self-efficacy, the effect of learning anxiety on academic burnout may not have a significant effect.

Model of the test for simple slopes showing the moderating influence of academic self-efficacy of the association between academic anxiety and academic burnout.

The bias-corrected bootstrap confirmed that the indirect relationship between academic stress and academic burnout through anxiety was moderated by academic self-efficacy. To be specific, with the improvement of self-efficacy, the indirect effect was stronger (low level of academic self-efficacy: β = 0.011, SE = 0.027, 95% CI = −0.040 to 0.065; medium level of academic self-efficacy: β = 0.038, SE = 0.015, 95% CI = 0.010 to 0.067; high level of academic self-efficacy: β = 0.064, SE = 0.017, 95% CI = 0.032 to 0.100). The results support the hypotheses developed in this research.

This study constructed a moderated mediation model based on the problem behavior theory and transactional model, administered to adolescent students in grades 6 and 7, examined the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout, and tested the mediating role of academic anxiety and the moderating role of academic self-efficacy. The results of the study both expand the application of the model and contribute to the understanding of the critical issue of how academic stress affects academic burnout among junior high school students, and provide important insights into how to intervene in adolescents’ academic burnout.

The relation between academic stress and academic burnout

Adolescents experience a variety of stressors, and academic stress is one of the most significant sources of stress ( Ang and Huan, 2006 ). The present study found that academic stress in adolescents can significantly influence academic burnout, and the findings support hypothesis H1, which is consistent with previous findings ( Kim and Jang, 2016 ; Gonzálvez et al., 2018 ; Jiang et al., 2021 ). In terms of the three components of academic burnout, this result also supports the problem behavior theory ( Jessor, 1987 ) and the transactional model ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ). On the one hand, in terms of the behavioral component of aversion, the problem behavior theory suggests that the stress perception system directly influences the occurrence of problem behaviors and that the perception of stress also directly influences academic burnout behaviors when adolescents are in a stressful learning environment. On the other hand, in terms of the emotional and cognitive components of academic burnout, the transactional model ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ) suggests that individuals may assess learning stress as a threatening factor ( Tadeo-Álvarez et al., 2019 ), resulting in academic burnout emotions and academic burnout cognitions ( Hodge-Windover, 2018 ). In summary, academic stress has a direct impact on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of academic burnout, which can increase the level of adolescents’ academic burnout.

The mediating role of academic anxiety

The present study also revealed the mediating role of academic anxiety between academic stress and academic burnout, that is, academic stress can influence academic burnout not only directly and directly but also indirectly through academic anxiety, and the findings support hypothesis H2. First, the present study found that academic stress can positively predict academic anxiety. The higher the academic stress of adolescents, the higher their anxiety levels will be, which is consistent with previous research findings ( Khng, 2017 ; Dube et al., 2018 ; Pan and Zhang, 2021 ). According to the transactional model, learning anxiety is also an emotional response that individuals make after assessing stress ( Stetler and Guinn, 2020 ). When the assessment of stress or the ability to regulate emotions is abnormal, individuals are prone to anxiety ( Bhat, 2017 ). Second, the present study also found that academic anxiety positively predicted academic burnout, consistent with previous research ( Fernández-Castillo, 2021 ). This is because negative academic emotions trigger more in negative actual performance (e.g., academic burnout), and a decrease in the level of academic anxiety in individuals will help them to stay motivated and active in their studies, contributing to a reduction in academic burnout ( Steel, 2010 ). It is evident that learning anxiety acts as a bridge between learning stress and academic burnout; the more learning stress adolescents are subjected to, the more likely they are to develop learning anxiety, and this anxiety subsequently leads to higher levels of academic burnout. This result supports the stress process model ( Pearlin et al., 1981 ). This model suggests that stress can affect individuals both directly and indirectly by increasing certain negative psychological resources such as anxiety ( Aneshensel and Avison, 2015 ). Here, academic anxiety, as a result of the perception of a stressful environment ( Haikalis et al., 2022 ), is able to mediate the process of academic stress and academic burnout. In summary, academic stress can indirectly influence academic burnout through the mediating role of academic anxiety.

The moderating role of academic self-efficacy

The present study also found that academic self-efficacy moderated both the “academic stress and academic burnout” and “academic anxiety and academic burnout” pathways. First, academic self-efficacy buffered the negative effects of academic stress on academic burnout, that is, as academic self-efficacy increased, the predictive effect of academic stress on academic burnout decreased. Previous research has shown that Problem solving can increase with stress from assignments and workload for individuals with low self-efficacy, whereas this association is not significant for individuals with higher self-efficacy ( Zhao et al., 2015 ), so the academic burnout of adolescents with low academic self-efficacy increases with academic stress The association was not significant for adolescents with high academic self-efficacy ( Zhao et al., 2015 ). Research has shown that levels of academic burnout are strongly related to life satisfaction and problem solving ( Lian et al., 2014 ; Xiaoman et al., 2021 ), and longitudinal studies of adolescents suggest that self-efficacy moderates the relationship between stress and life satisfaction, with life satisfaction significantly decreasing with increasing stress for individuals with low self-efficacy, whereas for individuals with high self-efficacy, life satisfaction is not significantly affected by stress ( Burger and Samuel, 2017 ). The cognitive theory of stress proposed by Lazarus suggests that individuals with high self-efficacy perceive stressful events as challenges rather than threats and respond with positive behaviors or psychological states ( Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ; Homburg and Stolberg, 2006 ; Peng et al., 2015 ). For the present study, individuals with high academic self-efficacy perceive academically stressful events as challenges rather than threats, and reduce levels of academic burnout and respond to academic stress with positive psychological and academic performance. Therefore, academic self-efficacy can act as a moderating variable to regulate the relationship between academic stress and academic burnout.

In the relationship between academic anxiety and academic burnout, academic self-efficacy, rather than buffering the effect of academic anxiety on academic burnout, enhanced the association, a result inconsistent with the expectation of Hypothesis 4, that is, the positive predictive relationship between academic burnout and academic anxiety became more pronounced as self-efficacy increased. The results are also inconsistent with some previous research, where a study of children and adolescents showed that math self-efficacy buffered the negative effects of anxiety on academic performance, with anxiety negatively predicting math test scores among individuals with low self-efficacy levels only, whereas for individuals with high self-efficacy, anxiety did not predict lower test scores ( Galla and Wood, 2012 ; Pérez Fuentes et al., 2020 ). However, there are studies that support this result, as Burns et al.'s (2021) study noted that science self-efficiency negatively moderated science anxiety and science achievement, and for students with high science self-efficiency, high anxiety for students with high science self-efficiency, science achievement was significantly lower than that of students with low anxiety, whereas for students with low science self-efficiency, science achievement was significantly higher for students with high anxiety than for students with low anxiety, with anxiety having a potentially motivating effect on students with low self-efficacy ( Burns et al., 2021 ). A study by Barrows et al. (2013) also found that self-efficacy did not mitigate the effects of test anxiety on test scores.

The enhancement effect produced by academic self-efficacy in this study can be explained in two ways: on the one hand, the Reverse risk-buffering model (RBSM) suggests that the protective effect of protective factors is undermined when risk factors are too high ( Vanderbilt-Adrian and Shaw, 2008 ), and learning anxiety, as a risk factor, may undermine the protective effect of academic self-efficacy on predictive and protective effects of adolescents’ internalizing problems ( Valle et al., 2006 ; Zee et al., 2017 ). On the other hand, Pekrun’s control-value theory of academic emotions suggests that self-efficacy is one of the sources of academic emotions ( Pekrun, 1998 ; Pekrun, 2000 ) and can moderate the relationship between academic emotions and academic outcomes by changing expectations ( Pekrun et al., 2002 ). And Pekrun et al. (2002) argued that excessive expectations can trigger anxiety in individuals when they mean facing possible failure. That is, individuals with high academic self-efficacy have high expectations for outcomes ( Doménech-Betoret et al., 2017 ) and the anxiety they generate when faced with complex or difficult tasks may make them feel that expectations are difficult to meet and thus create anxiety, whereas individuals with low academic self-efficacy have high levels of anxiety themselves and have low expectations for outcomes, so anxiety does not lead to further academic burnout. Therefore, for middle school students with high academic self-efficacy, the effect of learning anxiety on academic burnout may be greater.

Limitations and practical implications

In this study, a moderated mediation model was constructed to examine the mediating process of “academic stress → academic anxiety → academic burnout” and the moderating role of academic self-efficacy. The results showed that the mediating effect of academic anxiety between academic stress and academic burnout was significant, and the moderating effect of academic self-efficacy in the direct path and the second half of the mediating path was significant, which helps to understand the relationship between learning stress and academic burnout and its internal mechanisms. There are several limitations of this study that could be improved in further research. First, this study used a cross-sectional design and was unable to test the stability of this mechanism of action across time; future studies could be administered to these participants again after a certain period of time to explore the stability of this mechanism of action across time; second, all of the variables explored in this study were related to academics, and according to ecosystem theory ( Guy-Evans, 2020 ), home environment, teacher instruction, peer relationships etc., may all have an impact on students’ academic burnout, so future research could explore the impact of these variables on academic burnout. Third, although research in the field of managerial psychology has shown that stress has a positive U-curve with performance ( Jamal, 1984 ; AbuAlRub, 2004 ), studies of teachers have shown that stress negatively predicts teaching performance ( Kumari, 2021 ). The present study found that academic stress positively predicted academic burnout, a linear relationship, so future research could explore whether there is a nonlinear relationship between academic stress and academic burnout. Finally, the use of self-report questionnaires to collect data may have left subjects subject to social approbability, thus not accurately obtaining their true data, which needs to be improved in future studies.

Nevertheless, this study has strong practical implications. Because of the current high levels of academic burnout among some adolescents, this study can provide targeted suggestions and insights for preventing and intervening in adolescents’ academic burnout. The results of the study show that, first, we can reduce the level of academic burnout by reducing the academic stress of adolescents, such as reducing extracurricular assignments. Second, we can equip adolescents with ways to regulate their emotions and reduce academic boredom by reducing academic anxiety. In addition, according to the results of the study, academic self-efficacy is effective in boosting confidence and coping with external stress effectively, but if students have high levels of academic anxiety, instantly students with high academic self-efficacy will increase the expression of academic burnout as their anxiety level increases. Therefore, for adolescents with high academic self-efficacy, although they can cope with external pressure effectively, they need to pay attention to the regulation of their academic anxiety, so it is more important to provide them with emotional psychological guidance to alleviate their academic anxiety levels; for adolescents with low academic self-efficacy, they need to stimulate their academic self-efficacy as well as pay attention to their own internal emotional regulation. In conclusion, the intervention and prevention of academic burnout in junior high school students should not focus on one aspect only, but should be carried out in an integrated and systematic way from three aspects: academic stress, academic anxiety, and academic self-efficacy.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the ethics committee at Shandong Normal University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin. Written informed consent was obtained from the minor(s)' legal guardian/next of kin for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

Author contributions

XG: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, validation, resources, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, validation, and writing—original draft.

This study was financially supported by National College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of China [grant number: 202210445011]. Shandong Normal University Undergraduate Research Fund Project in 2023 [grant number: BKJJ2022083].

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge all the participants in the study.

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Led by Its Youth, U.S. Sinks in World Happiness Report

For the first time since the first World Happiness Report was issued in 2012, the United States was not ranked among the world’s Top 20 happiest countries. The drop was driven by people under 30.

By Sopan Deb

Each year, it’s no surprise that Finland tops the annual World Happiness Report. And this year was no different, marking the country’s seventh consecutive year doing so — though some Finns have bristled at the title .

But the 2024 report, released on Wednesday , had a note of alarm that was less about who was at the top of the rankings and more about who wasn’t: Americans — particularly those under 30 — have become drastically less happy in recent years.

The report, compiled annually by a consortium of groups including the United Nations and Gallup, was the latest data point in what some researchers have described as a crisis among America’s youth.

For the first time since the first World Happiness Report was published in 2012, the United States fell out of the Top 20 and dropped to 23rd, pushed down by cratering attitudes of Americans under 30.

Americans have long been an unhappy bunch. They have never ranked in the Top 10 of the World Happiness Report, which is based on how respondents in different countries rate their own happiness.

But this was the first time that the consortium separated results by age, finding disparities in the views of younger and older Americans. Among the 143 countries surveyed , the United States ranked 10th for people 60 and older, but 62nd for people under 30. The happiest young people are in Lithuania, while the unhappiest are in Afghanistan.

“I have never seen such an extreme change,” John Helliwell, an economist and a co-author of the report, said in an interview, referring to the drop in happiness among younger people. “This has all happened in the last 10 years, and it’s mainly in the English-language countries. There isn’t this drop in the world as a whole.”

To collect the data, Dr. Helliwell and his collaborators interviewed about 1,000 people in each of the more than 130 countries surveyed annually from 2021 to 2023. Respondents were asked — among other prompts — to think of their life as a ladder and to rate it on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the best possible life.

Dr. Lorenzo Norris, an associate professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, who was not part of the World Happiness study, cited the disruptions to life brought about by the coronavirus pandemic as a chief cause of mental health challenges among younger Americans.

“The literature is clear in practice — the effect that this had on socialization, pro-social behavior, if you will, and the ability for people to feel connected and have a community,” Dr. Norris said of the pandemic. “Many of the things that would have normally taken place for people, particularly high school young adults, did not take place,” he added. “And that is still occurring.”

Jade Song, a 27-year-old novelist , counted herself among those who had become increasingly unhappy in recent years.

“It’s mostly because as an adult you suddenly become aware of all the world news and you pay attention more to what you can control, and you realize that there is so little you can control,” Ms. Song, who was not part of the study, said in an interview. “Even if you’re going to protests or paying your rent and bills all on time, it’s so difficult, especially now, to break free from how you’re living your life when you realize how little impact your actions actually have on a broader level.”

In 2022, a Harvard University study showed that well-being among young adults in the United States had declined in the previous 20 years. Young people — those between the ages of 18 and 25 — reported the lowest levels of happiness compared with other age groups, as well as the poorest mental and physical health, sense of purpose, character, virtue, close social relationships and financial stability. Similar findings have emerged in Britain and Canada.

“One factor, which we’re all thinking about, is social media,” said Dr. Robert Waldinger, the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. “Because there’s been some research that shows that depending on how we use social media, it lowers well-being, it increases rates of depression and anxiety, particularly among young girls and women, teenage girls.”

In addition, Dr. Waldinger said, the negative feedback loop from news consumption has become a contributing factor.

“There’s also a lot of anxiety about the state of the world,” he said. “About climate change. About all of the polarization that we’re seeing.”

Of course, the United States is not the only country dealing with the pandemic, social media and climate change. But in some other countries, such as Croatia, Switzerland and Austria, the World Happiness Report shows that young people are becoming happier.

Happiness has long been an object of fascination in the United States. The right to the “pursuit of happiness,” of course, appears early in the Declaration of Independence as a self-evident truth. Exploring it as a concept has been a mainstay of American pop culture. Think of the earworm hits “Happy” by Pharrell Williams or “Don’t Worry Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin. In the television show “Mad Men,” Don Draper laments: “What is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness .”

“ Part of the problem is that we have this huge expectation of happiness in America,” said Eric Weiner, the author of “The Geography of Bliss,” and so we suffer partly from the unhappiness of not being happy and the expectation that we should be happy. And not every country in the world has that.”

For that book, Mr. Weiner, a former foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, traveled to several countries ranked among the world’s happiest places.

“There’s an assumption that if you’re American, you’re wealthy and you’re high tech and you’re successful; you should be happy,” he said. “There’s a lot of data that shows that the greater your expectations, the less you’re happy.”

The expectations for young people like Ms. Song, the novelist, said have shifted.

“We have less to look forward to,” she said. “Because in the future, there’s going to be climate change that will affect the way we live. I think there’s less of a clear-cut trajectory for our life paths, because for so long, it was so easy just to know that you could go get married and have your 2.5 kids, and then pay for your house. But now that path is a lot more closed.”

There is a silver lining, though, for the report released on Wednesday, Dr. Helliwell said.

“ A, this angst is very local and, B, it’s very recent, which means, C, it’s not fundamental and going to last forever,” he said. “If it has been created that quickly, it could be removed that quickly.”

Sopan Deb is a Times reporter covering breaking news and culture. More about Sopan Deb

Managing Anxiety and Stress

Stay balanced in the face of stress and anxiety with our collection of tools and advice..

How are you, really? This self-guided check-in will help you take stock of your emotional well-being — and learn how to make changes .

These simple and proven strategies will help you manage stress , support your mental health and find meaning in the new year.

First, bring calm and clarity into your life with these 10 tips . Next, identify what you are dealing with: Is it worry, anxiety or stress ?

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I Hope You All Feel Terrible Now

How the internet—and Stephen Colbert—hounded Kate Middleton into revealing her diagnosis

Updated at 4:04 p.m ET on March 22, 2024

For many years, the most-complained-about cover of the British satirical magazine Private Eye was the one it published in the week after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. At the time, many people in Britain were loudly revolted by the tabloid newspapers that had hounded Diana after her divorce from Charles, and by the paparazzi whose quest for profitable pictures of the princess ended in an underpass in Paris.

Under the headline “Media to Blame,” the Eye cover carried a photograph of a crowd outside Buckingham Palace, with three speech bubbles. The first was: “The papers are a disgrace.” The next two said: “Yeah, I couldn’t get one anywhere” and “Borrow mine, it’s got a picture of the car.” People were furious. Sacks of angry, defensive mail arrived for days afterward, and several outlets withdrew the magazine from sale. (I am an Eye contributor, and these events have passed into office legend.) But with the benefit of hindsight, the implication was accurate: Intruding on the private lives of the royals is close to a British tradition. We Britons might have the occasional fit of remorse, but that doesn’t stop us. And now, because of the internet, everyone else can join in too.

Read: Just asking questions about Kate Middleton

That cover instantly sprang to mind when, earlier today, the current Princess of Wales announced that she has cancer. In a video recorded on Wednesday in Windsor, the former Kate Middleton outlined her diagnosis in order to put an end to weeks of speculation, largely incubated online but amplified and echoed by mainstream media outlets, about the state of her health and marriage.

Kate has effectively been bullied into this statement, because the alternative—a wildfire of gossip and conspiracy theories—was worse. So please, let’s not immediately switch into maudlin recriminations about how this happened. It happened because people felt they had the right to know Kate’s private medical information. The culprits may include three staff members at the London hospital that treated her, who have been accused of accessing her medical records, perhaps driven by the same curiosity that has lit up my WhatsApp inbox for weeks. Everyone hates the tabloid papers, until they become them.

In her statement, Kate said that after her abdominal surgery earlier in the year, which the press was told at the time was “planned”—a word designed to minimize its seriousness—later tests revealed an unspecified cancer. She is now undergoing “preventative chemotherapy,” but has not revealed the progression of the disease, or her exact prognosis. “I am well,” she said, promising that she is getting stronger every day. “I hope you will understand that as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment.”

This news will surely make many people feel bad. The massive online guessing game about the reasons for Kate’s invisibility seems far less fun now. Stephen Colbert’s “spilling the tea” monologue , which declared open season on the princess’s marriage, should probably be quietly interred somewhere. The sad simplicity of today’s statement, filmed on a bench with Kate in casual jeans and a striped sweater, certainly gave me pause. She mentioned the difficulty of having to “process” the news, as well as explaining her condition to her three young children in terms they could understand. The reference to the importance of “having William by my side” was pointed, given how much of the speculation has gleefully dwelt on the possibility that she was leaving him or vice versa.

Read: The eternal scrutiny of Kate Middleton

However, the statement also reveals that the online commentators who suggested that the royal household was keeping something from the public weren’t entirely wrong. Kate’s condition was described as noncancerous when her break from public life was announced in late January . The updated diagnosis appears to have been delivered in February, around the time her husband, Prince William, abruptly pulled out of speaking at a memorial service for the former king of Greece. Today’s statement represents a failure of Kensington Palace to control the narrative: first, by publishing a photograph of Kate and her children that was so obviously edited that photo agencies retracted it, and second, by giving its implicit permission for the publication of a grainy video of the couple shopping in Windsor over the weekend. Neither of those decisions quenched the inferno raging online—in fact, they fed it.

Some will say that Kate has finally done what she should have done much earlier: directly address the rumors in an official video, rather than drip-feed images that raised more questions than they answered. King Charles III has taken a different approach to his own (also unspecified) cancer, allowing footage to be filmed of him working from home. But then again, Kate has cancer at 42, is having chemo, and has three young children. Do you really have it in you to grade her media strategy and find it wanting?

Ironically, Britain’s tabloid papers have shown remarkable restraint; as I wrote earlier this month , they declined to publish the first paparazzi pictures of Kate taken after her withdrawal from public life. They have weighted their decisions toward respect and dignity—more so than the Meghan stans, royal tea-spillers, and KateGate theorists, who have generated such an unstoppable wave of interest in this story that its final destination was a woman with cancer being forced to reveal her diagnosis. If you ever wanted proof that the “mainstream media” are less powerful than ever before, this video of Kate Middleton sitting on a bench is it.