My neighbour’s son is looking so stressed out these days. I think he’s just gone into year 12, so it may be understandable, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy. If he’s not rushing out the door in a flap to get to a 7 am tutoring session, he’s dashing home with a huge bag of reading material, not to emerge until the next morning.
I wonder what resources are around in terms of stress management for students. I’m sure that high schools must be on the case regarding the detrimental effects of poorly managed stress, and I would imagine they’d be providing workshops on the subject for the seniors. Still, when I was that age, I don’t think I’d have had much capacity to take in something like that. It would have gone in one ear and out the other.
Maybe chronic stress is just part of the high school experience; I mean, it’s a great primer for the onslaught of workplace stress to come. I’m joking… sort of. As I said before, stress can be understandable without being healthy or desirable, and that obviously applies to job stress as well. Stress management programs for workplaces are clearly as important necessary as those in schools, and are perhaps given even less attention.
It seems common for people to assume that adult life is a stressful experience, and that that’s just the way it is. That kind of attitude creates a barrier to implementing measures that could help address it, like teaching people how to apply techniques for managing stress in a healthy way.
I do think that stress is a natural response, and that we can’t go through life without experiencing it from time to time. But living in a perpetual state of stress shouldn’t be what we grow up expecting. It’s important to know the difference between a bit of motivation to get the job done, and a long-term threat to wellbeing.