Teens And Stress Essay Research Paper Teens — страница 2

can occur. Teenagers can respond to occasional stress, but when it happens repeatedly the effects can multiply and compound over a lifetime. Chronic stress can damage a person?s overall health. Stress can suppress the immune system. This makes a person susceptible to infectious diseases: viral infections such as influenza, and bacterial infections such as tuberculosis. Stress can cause cardiovascular disease. The heart beats faster, which makes a person vulnerable to chest pain and irregular heart rhythms. Stress may even lead to heart attack or stroke. Chronic stress can cause anxiety, panic attacks, depression, irritability, or diabetes. All of these types of stress are caused by everyday occurrences. Growing up means constant change: physically, emotionally, and socially.

Teens today have more pressures than most of their parents had, and stress overload can become a huge problem. Stress is likely to happen while experiencing changes, whether happy or upsetting. Some causes of teen stress are: physical development being behind or ahead of most classmates, problems at home, someone close has passed away, and the feeling that everyone?s expectations are too high. Teenagers feel a lot of conflicting things such as: sometimes loving and feeling close to parents, then hating your parents and wanting to be antonomous, yet secretly wishing to be taken care of like a child again. Stress can be caused by having a job, extracurricular activities, not fitting in to a social group, school expectations, parental expectations, being unable to prioritize, and

being pushed and pulled by different classes (VanWie). Teens face the stresses of educational choices after high school; should they go to college and if they do how will they pay? Financial pressures can be a problem, good part time work is scarce and parents do not have as much money as they did 20 years ago. Things such as burning dinner, hosting a party, receiving a promotion, or going on vacation can cause mild stress. Stress may be the result of too many simultaneous changes in your life over which teens have no control such as, moving to a new school or a divorce. Stress may be the result of one?s perception of life. Life may not be full of traumatic change, yet the way the problems are handled may make them seem bigger than they really are. ?Usually, it is the perception

and interpretation of a situation that causes stress,? says Dr. Dreagan (Pikes Peak). Fortunately, stress can be handled and made less severe. There are many ways to reduce stress and keep you from becoming overstressed. Some of the things used to manage stress can actually make the problem worse. Smoking, drinking, taking drugs, and eating junk food can magnify the physical effects of stress. Caffeine, nicotine, sugar, and alcohol increases susceptibility to stress and decreases tolerance. The number one way to prevent a lot of stress is to keep the lines of communication open. Communicate with parents, but if parents are the cause of stress, than talk to somebody who is trusted (Life in Realistic). There are also many peer support groups: at school, in the community, and even

the Internet. Some ways of lowering stress are: define sleeping hours and stick to them, take a break and let the body have time to heal itself, say ?No? more often when others request something time consuming, and take time off from work or school (101 Ways). To avoid stress overload try learning to accept what can not be changed or work on solving problems one at a time. By doing simple things such as asking a friend for a hug or looking up at the stars, stress can become less harmful (101 Ways). Stress is an everyday occurrence in everyone?s life. With the stress from work and school alone, many teens will face double the stress that many adults do in a day. A social life should be a release of stress but many times it will just add more stress to their already stressful

lives. Teens need to remember to relax, have fun, and take one day at a time. Bibliography WORK CITED: Gaines, Susan. ?Do We Push Kids Too Hard?? Better Homes and Garden, March, 2000, pp. 94-97 (1999)._Life in the Realistic Lane: Tips for Slowing Down [Online]_. Available: http://www.006.webcenter.personalogic.aol.com O?Conner, Anne. ?Little Kids with Big Stress: Tips on Recognizing and Easing the worry in your Children.? Better Homes and Garden, November 1999, pp. 108-110. (2000)._101 Ways to Reduce Stress [Online]_. Available: http://library.thinkquest.org/13561/English/101_reduce.html Pikes Peak Mental Health (2000)._Teens and Stress [Online]_. Available: http://www.ppmhc.org/Teens/teens.htm VanWie, Eileen Kalberg. Teenage Stress. New York: Julian Messner, 1987.