Stressors of Students and Ways of struggle with them
Introduction
Stress is a common experience for students, stemming from various academic, familial, and societal pressures. The current research examines the impact of academic and familial stress on students' depression levels and the subsequent impact on their academic performance based on Lazarus' cognitive appraisal theory of stress. Understanding the causes and effects of stress is crucial for developing effective coping mechanisms and support systems that can promote students' mental health and academic success.
Academic Stressors
Academic issues are thought to be the most prevalent source of stress for college students. Students face constant pressure to perform well in their studies. Academic stress is defined by the National Institutes of Health as the body’s response to academic-related demands that exceed a student’s abilities. Academic stress is the leading cause of stress in students, and it isn’t uncommon for academic stress in students to result in physical and emotional problems that can worsen over time. Exams, test preparation, grade level competitiveness, and gaining a big quantity of knowledge in a short period of time all contribute to academic pressure. According to Yang et al., students claimed that academic-related pressures such as ongoing study, writing papers, preparing for tests, and boring professors were the most important daily problems.
There are different types of stress caused by academics. These can include frustration over homework loads or conflicts with teachers. Other types of academic stress in students may stem from learning challenges, a lack of support resources or even poor physical classroom environments.
Impact of Academic Stress
Academic stress has been linked to a variety of negative effects, including ill health, anxiety, depression, and poor academic performance. Lack of motivation, withdrawal and depression are all ways stress affects students in the classroom. Stress can also cause students to be more impulsive, which hurts their ability to think critically or solve problems in school. When students are under stress, they can have difficulty focusing and worry more. Cortisol, a stress hormone, can also result in memory impairment. Mounting academic stress can become so intense that it affects student attendance and academic performance. As such, the causes of stress in school continue to build, creating what can seem like an endless cycle of hopelessness for some teens. Some may begin to act out or engage in risky behaviors.
Family Stressors
Parental participation and learning affect how parents treat their children, as well as how they handle their children's habits and cognitive processes. This, in turn, shapes their children's performance and behaviors toward them. As a result, the parent-child relationship is dependent on the parents' attitudes, understanding, and perspectives. When parents have positive views, the relationship between them and their children will be considerably better than when they have negative attitudes.
Read also: Causes of College Stress
Parents respond to unpleasant emotions in a variety of ways, which can be classified as supportive or non-supportive. Parents' supportive reactions encourage children to explore their emotions by encouraging them to express them or by assisting them in understanding and coping with an emotion-eliciting scenario. Non-supportive behaviors, such as downplaying the kid’s emotional experience, disciplining the child, or getting concerned by the child’s display, transmit the child the message that expressing unpleasant emotions is inappropriate and unacceptable. Supportive parental reactions to unpleasant emotions in children have been linked to dimensions of emotional and social competence, such as emotion comprehension and friendship quality.
Risk factors for teenage depression have several and complicated problems of individual characteristics and family and educational life. Amongst the huge depression factors, relationship building with family demands a major chunk of attention and time since factors like parenting and family building play an important role in children's development. Halonen et al. concluded that factors like family binding play a major role in development, preservation, and driving adolescent depression. There are two types of family risk factors, soft and hard. Hard factors are encountered in families with a weak family building structure, parents are little to no educated at all, and of course, the family status (economically). Several studies have proved that students of hard risk factors are more likely to encounter depression.
Firstly, students from broken families have low confidence in every aspect of life, and they are weak at handling emotional breakdowns compared to students from complete and happy families. Secondly, the university students born in educated families, especially mothers (at least a college degree or higher degree), are less likely to confront depression than the university students born in families with little to no educated families. Secondly, children born with educated mothers or mothers who at least have a college degree tend to be less depressive than the children of less-educated mothers. Thirdly, university students who belong to lower class families tend to have more unstable mental states and are more likely to witness depression than middle or upper-class families.
Societal and Environmental Stressors
Societal issues like mass shootings, abortion laws, racial and political division and the environment are major stressors among people ages 18 to 34, according to the APA's 2024 "Stress in America" report. Respondents in this demographic also reported the highest levels of stress related to personal safety.
"In some ways that makes sense, because they're the ones who are going to be living under these conditions for much longer and are often, unfortunately, the recipients of gun violence, as one example," Wright says. "The worst thing we could do is dismiss these concerns as just younger people not being able to manage life. I don't think that's what's happening at all. I think younger people are having to manage life in a much more stressful way than those of us in older generations have ever had to do."
Read also: High school academic pressure
The Role of Cognitive Appraisal Theory
The idea of cognitive appraisal theory was presented in 1966 by psychologist Richard Lazarus in Psychological Stress and Coping Process. According to this theory, appraisal and coping are two concepts that are central to any psychological stress theory. Both are interrelated. According to the theory, stress is the disparity between stipulations placed on the individuals and their coping resources. Since its first introduction as a comprehensive theory, a few modifications have been experienced in theory later. The recent adaptation states that stress is not defined as a specific incitement or psychological, behavioral, or subjective response. Rather, stress is seen as a relation between an individual and his environment. Cognitive appraisal is a model based on the idea that stress and other emotional processes depend on a person's expectancies regarding the significance and outcome of an event, encounter, or function. This explains why there are differences in intensity, duration, and quality of emotions elicited in people in response to the environment, which objectively, are equal for all. These appraisals may be influenced by various factors, including a person's goals, values, motivations, etc., and are divided into primary and secondary appraisals, specific patterns of which lead to different kinds of stress.
Sketching the overall evaluation frameworks, Pancer et al. established their framework to exhibit the constructive and damaging adjustment results for the university students dealing with the academic challenges. They stated that while students enroll in the university, they evaluate all the stress-related factors that students confront. They consider them manageable as long as they have sufficient resources. On the other hand, if the available resources do not match the stress factors, it will surely result in a negative relationship, which will lead students to experience depression for sure.
Recognizing the Symptoms of Stress
Stress often manifests as physical symptoms like muscle tension, teeth grinding, headaches, stomach aches or trouble sleeping, Wright says. People often dismiss these, but they could be signs that you're stressed, she says. Emotional symptoms include social isolation and avoidance, assuming the worst outcome in situations, or rumination - dwelling on negative thoughts and emotions.
Changes in diet and sleep are also telling, says Jessica Gomez, a clinical psychologist and executive director of Momentous Institute, a research-based organization that provides mental health services and educational programming to children and families. She warns students to watch for signs of irritability, a classic indicator of increased stress that can compound issues, especially in interpersonal relationships.
Coping Mechanisms and Stress Management
Several researchers, such as have studied stress and depression elements from a performance perspective and reported that stress and depression negatively affect the academic performance of students. However, Aafreen et al. reported contradictory results and stated that stress sharpens the individual's mind and reflexes and enables workers to perform better in taxing situations.
Read also: Student Stress Management Guide
Various methods are used to tackle stress. One of the methods is trying to pinpoint the causes of stress, which leads us to different terms such as family stress and academic stress. The two factors, stress and depression, have greatly impacted the students' academic performances. This research follows the Lazarus theory based on stress to examine the variables.
Practical Strategies for Students
Build and Maintain Social Connections: In the 2024 Gallup poll, 24% of students reported feeling they didn't belong as the reason they considered dropping out of school. Experts say it's important to build community in college, as socializing, having fun and finding joy in life help manage stress and are important developmentally for young adults. Clubs and extracurriculars can be good for making friends and social connections and may even lead to a career, experts say.
Sleep Enough, Eat Well and Exercise: Maintaining healthy habits can help students manage stress. Getting the right amount of sleep and regular exercise can help regulate stress hormones like cortisol and release beneficial hormones like endorphins, Rith-Najarian says. Experts suggest creating a routine and sticking to it. That includes getting eight to 10 hours of sleep and avoiding late nights, Gomez says. A nutrient-rich diet can also go a long way in maintaining good physical and mental health, she says. Getting outdoors and being active can also help students limit their screen time and use of social media.
Seek Help: Colleges typically offer mental health resources such as counseling and support groups for struggling students. If you're dealing with chronic and unhealthy stress, contact your college and get in touch with friends and family for support. Reaching out to parents, friends or mentors can help when feelings of stress come up, especially in heightened states around midterm and final exams. Accessing student support services and counseling early can prevent a cascading effect that can lead to serious mental health challenges or unhealthy coping mechanisms like problem drinking and drug abuse, experts say.
Practice regular exercise and healthy eating
Establish a good sleep routine
Avoid excess caffeine (can increase feelings of anxiety and agitation)
Avoid illegal drugs, alcohol, and tobacco
Practice relaxation exercises (abdominal breathing and muscle relaxation)
Learn to express feelings politely, but firmly
Rehearse situations which cause stress
Decrease negative self-talk: challenge negative thoughts with alternative, neutral, or positive thoughts
Stop expecting perfection from yourself and others; learn to feel good about doing a competent or “good enough” job
Build a network of friends who help you cope in a positive way
The Impact of Stress on Academic Performance
Higher education institutions (HEIs) are believed to be one of the strongest pillars in the growth of any nation. Being the principal stakeholder, the performance of HEIs mainly relies on the success of its students. To successfully compete in the prevailing dynamic industrial environment, students are not only supposed to develop their knowledge but are also expected to have imperative skills and abilities. In the current highly competitive academic environment, students' performance is largely affected by several factors, such as social media, academic quality, family and social bonding, etc. Stress is a common factor that largely diminishes individual morale. It develops when a person cannot handle their inner and outer feelings. When the stress becomes chronic or exceeds a certain level, it affects an individual's mental health and may lead to different psychological disorders, such as depression.
For them, academic achievement is a big goal of life and can severely be affected if the students fall prey to depression. There can be several reasons for this: family issues, exposure to a new lifestyle in colleges and universities, poor academic grades, favoritism by teachers, etc. Never-ending stress or academic pressure of studies can also be a chief reason leading to depression in students. Several researchers have studied stress and depression elements from a performance perspective and reported that stress and depression negatively affect the academic performance of students.
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