By Lois Biggs & Beau Hunsaker
Hawk Herald
Forest Hills Eastern HS
1st Place
Division 3, News Writing
In-Depth Feature
When faced with stress, high schoolers ask them-selves the same question over and over. “What if?”
What if I fail this test? What if I trip on the great hall stairs? What if people vote for me on Twitter? What if the teacher calls on me and I don’t know the answer? What if I don’t get any likes on Instagram? What if I’m not wearing the right clothes? What if my friends are talk-ing about me behind my back? What if I get a bad SAT score? What if I don’t get into my dream school?
Sometimes it’s hard to silence these questions.
For teenagers with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), these “what ifs” are constant. But based on American Psycho-logical Association (APA) studies show-ing that teenagers today report higher levels of stress than adults, many teens are familiar with self-doubt and worry. The high school years are a time full of uncertainty, but this expected uncertainty doesn’t fully account for the high levels of stress and anxiety that teenagers report today. What causes teenage stress and anxiety, and why is it rising? Why do teenagers keep asking themselves “What if?”
STRESS
In psychology, stress is defined as a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our mental and physical equilibrium, or sense of balance. Stress can be tire-some, but it’s necessary. “Anxiety or stress in itself is not a bad thing,” said Dr. Frank Conner, head of Grand Rapids Community College’s psychology department. “Stress motivates us, but if we have too much stress, it cripples us.” If we don’t feel any stress about passing a test, we won’t put any effort towards studying. However, if we feel too much stress, we may freeze up rather than recall what we studied.
In the APA study, 31% of teens surveyed reported feeling overwhelmed due to stress, 30% reported feeling sad or depressed due to stress, and 23% reported skipping meals due to stress. “Stress is an additive,” said Conner. “Everybody has the capacity to manage so much, but unlike other things in life, you reach a point where it starts to affect you emotionally and then physically.” Janel Sweeney ‘16 talked about her own experience with this breaking
point. “When you reach a point of stress where you just want to stop and take a break, it’s hard to get back into it once you do stop,” she said.
EXPECTATIONS
Societal expectations are an important factor in stress. Teenagers are expected to maintain decent grades, expected to participate in a variety of activities, expected to be individual and independent. Sometimes it reaches a point where these expectations are too much to handle. “Anxiety is often the tension between what culture expects of you, which then creates what you expect of yourself, and the measure to which you believe you are meeting those expectations,” said Conner. In this competitive academic society, there is little room for failure. The pressure
to be accepted to prestigious colleges and receive substantial scholarships is important, but might not be realistic. “I don’t care what your major is! I just want you to be successful,” said Conner. In reality, all teenagers have different capacities for this pressure, and different abilities and talents. Stress is personal; different students approach it in different ways. “Usually I set the expectations for myself before other people set them for me,” said FHE
student Maddie Yaw ‘17. Students should take care in deciding whether or not these expectations are personal and viable or the product of unrealistic peer and societal standards.
Since expectations often revolve around school and success, it’s not surprising that 83% of teens surveyed in the APA study identified school as a significant source of stress. Students often balance classes, extracurriculars, and jobs while attempt-ing to maintain a social life and find time for relaxation. Licensed social worker and local therapist Merrill Graham emphasizes the importance of sleep for teenagers, especially in the midst of busy, stressful schedules. “If you’re not getting enough rest, you are tired, your brain is tired, and it can contribute to anxiety and depression,” she said.
Teenagers need about nine hours of sleep per night, but most get seven or less. During adolescence, sleep cycles shift later, and it’s often difficult for teens to fall asleep before 11 PM. Consider-ing this, some high schools have switched to later start times to accomodate teen sleep schedules and reduce student stress. Graham thinks that this is a smart move. “If they could move the school day back later, I think, ideally, students would get more rest,” she said.
SOCIAL MEDIA
This generation of teenagers is the first to grow up in an era where technology is ubiquitous and social media is an important part of social interaction. A 2015 study by the Pew Research Center found that 92% of teenagers go online daily, and 24% of teenagers go online “almost constantly.” Peer influences and opinions don’t stop when students leave school, they follow then home. Teenagers are exposed to vacation shots and prom photos on theirInstagram feeds, jokes and subtweets on Twitter, gossip and rumors on apps like After School. And because online text lacks a clear tone, it’s easy to misinterpret people’s words. According to Graham, social media gives teens more things to worry about. “You are always aware of what people are thinking, and you’re always see-ing what their opinion is, and sometimes it’s negative,”she said. “With social media, there is no break.” Dr. Conner described a modern psychological phenomenon known as “Facebook envy.” People of-ten create false identities on social media, showcasing the best and most exciting parts of their lives. Facebook envy describes the comparison viewers make between their own lives and the exaggerated lives of others. They’re aware of their own life and the challenges and hardships, but when they see what look like “perfect” lives on social media, their self-esteem drops. “Social media is creating unrealistic expectations because often times people are engaging in self-presentation. We present the best parts of us and often accentuate them,” he said.“Unplugging” completely is out of the question for most teens.But if social media is a negative influence on students’ stress levels, they can try limiting the amount of time they spend checking it. Social media can have harmful effects, but in some cases, it can help teenagers relieve stress by giving them a place to talk about it with others. On platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it’s easy to connect with people going through similar situations and to contact friends for support and advice. Graham sees social media as a mixed bag, acknowledging its benefits as well as its flaws. “As much as we can criticize it, social media is bring-ing anxiety to the attention of teenagers,” she said. Social media can provoke anxiety, but it also can provide space to discuss it and find emotional support.
THE TEENAGE BRAIN
Expectations, school, and social media aside, the teenage brain itself is prone to anxiety. Teenagers are in the formal operational stage of brain development, meaning that they can think abstractly and consider the big picture. However, it’s often hard for them to be objective and deconstruct the societal expectations they face. “The problem is that the teenage brain is still new in that stage,” said Conner. “So to be able to engage in reflective thought, to be able to step back and say, ‘Well, these expectations are meaningless.’ They’re not good at that.”
Biologically, the teenage brain is “pruning” itself, reorganizing itself in order to create newer, more efficient neural pathways. But this developing efficiency comes at a cost. “The problem is that in this pruning, the teenage brain hasn’t solidified its newer, more efficient pathways,” said Conner, “so it leaves teenagers confused about the right actions.” Due to brain development, some level of uncertainty is expected in teens, and due to societal expectations, busy schedules, and social pressures, high levels of stress and anxiety are common. But sometimes, stress and anxiety become physiological, a part of the brain’s chemistry. When this happens, anxiety disorders develop.
ANXIETY DISORDERS
Anxiety disorders are very real and have the potential to become debilitating. Conner defined three “D’s” to determine if anxiety is just normal stress or if it has become an actual disorder. “Is it deviant?” Does it exceed the stress of peers or society? “Is it dysfunctional?” Is it starting to disrupt your life to a point where you can no longer function because of the level of stress you’re experiencing? And finally, “Is it distressful?” Is there an internal worry about the stress itself?
The difficulty of having an anxiety disorder in today’s society is magnified by the way people talk about stress. Thoughtless comments and casual micro aggressions about anxiety disorders are prevalent. “A micro aggression is an indirect phrase or an indirect communication towards an individual that communicates a kind of disgust,” said Conner. These are so ingrained in modern expression that people often don’t recognize the insensitivity of blaming orderliness on ‘OCD,’ or describing fleeting fear as a ‘panic attack.’ Despite the stigma, people should validate their anxiety. Personal health outweighs peer opinion, and sup-port is always available for those who seek it. “I can’t normalize enough that everyone worries. It’s the way our brain is made,” said Graham. She says that anxiety should be addressed as a disorder when it affects relationships, sleep and daily habits.
“If the “what if’s” become too consuming, it’s time to ask for help,” said Graham.