Teen Stress

4 Pages 1022 Words

Teens and Stress: How do they Deal?


Beth has had practice for a play four nights a week for the last month. She also has three projects due by Friday, including an English paper. Besides this, Beth has been fighting off a cold and has continued to work at her part time job of twenty hours a week. One night at home Beth’s mother asked her to do the dinner dishes, it was the last straw. “Why do I always have to do the dishes?” Beth shouts. “It’s not fair, I am tired of doing everything!” Before her mother can answer, Beth turns and stomps upstairs to her room. The mother just doesn’t understand why Beth could be so upset.
Beth’s blowup is a reaction to stress. Many teenagers around the world know how Beth feels. Teenagers deal with stress everyday. Stress is the physical and mental pressure you feel from certain circumstances (Kowalski 2). Stress also affects your entire body. When there is a stressful event your body automatically causes the adrenal glands to release adrenaline. The brain of the body also signals the pituitary gland to release another hormone called ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone). With all the hormones releasing at once it causes the heart rate and blood pressure to rise in the body. Which causes the blood to move away from the digestive system toward the brain and muscles, and leaves the stomach feeling upset (Kowalski 7).
One of the many steps in dealing with stress is to first identify the problem and the causes. Everyone experiences some stress but teenagers have the most
(Johnson 14). According to Donald Freedheim from Case Western Reserve University, that the teenage years present challenges and that teens go through many biological changes (Kowalski 7). Many other causes of teenage stress comes from school work, grades, college, and jobs. Many teens are dealing with identity and independence problems at the same time. All of these experiences add up until finally the teen blows u...