By Ashley Wright

When adults recall their high school years, they often describe them as “the best time of their life,” but many students today would disagree. According to the American Psychological Association, teens today have higher stress levels than adults, and those stress levels are expected to rise in the coming years. There are numerous factors that may be contributing to this, and many of them have to do with the increasing need to go to college and the excessive planning that post high school life requires.

While it is important to be thinking and planning for the future, today’s students deal with too much unnecessary stress; some are so anxious out that they don’t even want to go to college anymore. “I’ve planned on going to college, but ever since the stress from high school I’m to the point where I don’t think I want to even go anymore; it makes me feel like I won’t be able to handle college,” said sophomore Abigail Gaylord.

The amount of tasks that students are expected to handle is quite overwhelming. Schools recommend that students take AP/dual/articulated credit classes, and/or programs like CTC and Summit Tech to help prepare for college or a vocation. But all of these classes takes a lot of commitment, and that can be a problem. There are many other things that they are responsible for and must keep doing, such as keeping up in other classes, participating in extracurricular activities, taking care of chores around the house, going to work, and keeping a social life–all of which are important for mental health.

Let’s say a student did, in fact, take AP classes, have a job, and participate in a sport or activity. They would spend seven hours at school, about two hours at their sport/activity, go to a three or four hour shift at work, come home and eat dinner, take a shower, and do three or more hours of homework. This student would only get around six hours of sleep, and teenagers need approximately nine to ten hours of sleep a night to be able to grow and function properly. If they continue to only get 6 hours of sleep a night, it will lead to sleep deprivation.

Stress and sleep deprivation can not only get in the way of a student’s success in school but can also lead to many health problems, such as heart disease, digestive problems, sleep problems, weight problems, depression, panic attacks, weak immune system, high blood pressure, and stress headaches. No matter how good it looks on college applications, taking AP classes and participating in other activities is not worth sacrificing one’s health.

Along with spending hours studying, participating in activities, and having a job, students are expected to know what their post graduation plans are. It’s highly unrealistic for school officials to expect high schoolers to know exactly what college and career they aspire to go into; teenagers are very indecisive. It is not until approxiamtely age twenty-five that the the decision-making part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is fully developed. Further, the prefrontal cortex is also responsible for behavior, personality, and social skills. Being exposed to high levels of stress during this crucial time of growing will affect the development of the brain.

There are changes that the school make to help decrease students’ stress. Having a block schedule instead of the traditional seven-classes-a-day would help students tremendously; they would be able to spend more time in each class and have less work to do outside of school. Further, they would only have three or four classes a day to worry about; thus helping with the homework problem.

Creating a class on how to manage stress would be helpful to a lot of students that have difficulty handling pressure and in turn would help them be more successful in school and prevent health problems. Promoting different higher education programs like apprenticeships and trade schools instead of college could lift some pressure off of students; at any rate, many don’t plan on going to a big university because of the costs, time, and/or the type of career they hope to pursue.

If schools try to make these changes, then high school will be a much more enjoyable experience. Students should be able to say that their high school years were the best of their lives. Teenage years are meant for Friday night football games, going out with friends, and learning valuable lessons; they aren’t meant for sleep deprivation, stress overload, and health problems from school. There will be plenty of stress in college and adulthood; students should not have to deal with so many pressures now.