ABOVE THE STRESS
Learn to Deal With It
Dealing with pressures and stress in high school can be hard sometimes. The pressure to make friends, earn good grades, excel in sports or other activities, deal with crammed schedules, establish and maintain relationships, and navigate an occasionally difficult home life can feel overwhelming at times. Dealing with all of this can mess with your self-esteem, outlook on life, mood, and health. The next thing you know, you’re feeling stressed, or worse.
What is Stress?
When you are stressed, your body reacts to enhance your senses and ability to meet a challenge like taking a test, building the courage to ask someone out on a date, scoring a goal, or swerving to avoid a car crash. Your body releases hormones called adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream, which increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure, boosts energy supplies by increasing glucose (blood sugar) in the bloodstream, and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues.1 All of these things happen to prepare you to handle anything that comes your way, whether it’s running away from a rabid dog or staying up late to finish a paper.
Mild stress may cause changes in our brains and bodies that are useful, but if stress is constant or prolonged, the changes that it produces can be harmful.2
Some people think they can deal with stress by taking drugs. They think if they are unhappy, drugs will make them feel better. And some people say they think that taking drugs might help them to cope with stress in their lives. But drugs don't fix the problems that are causing the stress in the first place, and they don't stop the feelings themselves. Drug use can actually worsen the situation and lead to even more stress, anxiety, or even depression.
It is important to remember that everyone feels stressed sometimes and everyone goes through hard times. It might not seem like it now, but most things get better with time, especially if you confront the problems and work through them. Dealing with your problems directly might be difficult at first, but it will make you happier in the long run. For example, you may have to lessen your work load or talk with a parent, teacher, or other professional about something that is bothering you at home. But if you find your feelings do not improve, you could also be suffering from depression, which can be caused by unbalanced chemicals in the brain – and is not your fault. Depression is totally treatable - read more about it here.
Learn about depression or visit the Girls Journals for personal stories and advice.
For immediate help, call The Girls and Boys Town National Hotline, a 24-hour crisis, resource and referral line staffed by highly-trained counselors who can respond to any of your mental or physical health problems. The organization also has a chat room staffed by trained counselors.
Girls and Boys Town National Hotline 
Call 1-800-448-3000 (24 Hours/7 Days A Week)