Young adults and even young teens are faced with immense academic pressure. This is more than just a little stress caused by a difficult or long assignment, the issue is rooted in the system. The pressure to do the best so they can be the best is in students’ heads. We all want to do well in high school and get into a good college, and then we all want to do well in college to get a good career. But what are the real consequences and long-term effects of prioritizing academics over our mental health/physical health? Here are some examples:
I have been struggling with this since the beginning of high school. I would find myself staying up late at night or not sleeping at all, so I could get work done. I would pile work on myself and do so much extra credit work because I knew that I could stay up all night to get it done. I felt that staying up was worth it, even if I was exhausted the next day, I knew that at least my grades would be good. I was desperate for that 4.0 in high school that I sacrificed my sleep for my grades and I continued to do this.
The end of senior year came around and I felt completely burnt out, I pushed myself so hard for 4 years that I was beginning to shut down. I was mentally and physically drained from competing in a competition that was not even officially established. I still had college in the fall and truthfully I was not ready mentally. I was still very much burnt out from high school, and I was not ready to be thrown into another competition. It felt like I had to start all over again. My first semester of college was heartbreaking, I had no motivation and unfortunately, my grades paid the price.
My stress from school was bad that I began to get headaches constantly. I woke up with a headache and went to bed with a headache. The pain was always at a constant 8 on a 1-10 scale. There were times when I went the whole day to school with an unbearable headache but I dealt with it. I feared missing school whenever I was experiencing these headaches because I knew I would be behind. Of course, I went to the doctor, and they wanted me to document every time I got a headache and the pain level. My calendar was filled, it was almost daily that I felt pain.
Today depression and anxiety are two obstacles that teens and young adults face on a day-to-day basis. The pressure of school already takes a toll on the average student but if there are students that suffer from these disorders the pressure can be ten times worse for them. The outcomes are unpredictable, the questions begin at how many teens and young adults suffer from these disorders and what do these mean for them academically? It’s important to find out the relationship between academics and these disorders to prioritize student’s mental health.
In high school and college, there is an institutionalized competition against your peers. Of course, it is not blatantly said that students are in competition with each other but it sure does feel that way. The pressure to get into a good college and to get a good career after college is intense. So, to some getting a bad grade is detrimental. Some teens or even young adults cannot handle failure and it can result in them being fixated on that failure. That can overall cause stress and put students in a negative headspace. It is important to understand this negative mindset and what this will mean for students academically.
The end of the year is the time when most of the testing occurs and students can of course be stressed by this. The desire to do well on these tests outweighs anything else. Some students study so much and so hard that they may forget basic personal hygiene. Students can be so focused or stressed about completing an assignment or studying that they can forget to eat, drink water, or even shower. The question is why do students forget to do these things, are they postponing the action of doing these things, or are they completely fixated on academics that these thoughts are altogether not there?
Students want to do well for themselves and their parents. However, the pressure to meet parents' high expectations is burdensome. There’s this voice in the back of your head telling you that you have to do good, you have to meet or go beyond their expectations to be “good” or “of value”. I’m sure we’ve all heard that voice in our head and not meeting those expectations takes a big hit to one's self-esteem. I think that it is important to understand why we all hear that “voice” in our heads. We need to note if all expectations are bad and how they overall affect a student and how they perform.
The topic is circled around academic pressure and what happens when it is prioritized over mental and physical health. It can be seen that both the mental and physical health of students are in jeopardy. It’s important to see the risk that a student's mental health is at when academics are put on this pedestal. We want to know the why, why do students themselves prioritize school over their mental and physical health and what are students experiencing. Is anyone at fault? These are important questions to ask, and they should be answered. We have to look further into the connection between the how and the why of it all.
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