Associate Professor

Department of Psychology

B.R.D. PG College

 Deoria, Uttar Pradesh, India 

Abstract

Young generation are the leaders for the next generation who wil lead the country and helps in the nation’s economic development. But, an academic, social pressure and pressure of getting a good job with good salary etc. factors affect their performance and life. These different kind of mental pressures result to stress among the youth. Stress is the reality of life which can be good where it can trigger our fight-or-flight mechanism to help in case of emergencies but too much stress can harm our health and body. Among most types of stress faced by youth, academic stress is one of the reasons why some students fall into deeper problems such as depression and anxiety. There are many elements like not having enough sleep, troubles in education and job stress, and pains occur due to all these situations, are very bad to their body. So, this paper focuses on the various kind of stress among youth, level of stress, effect of stress, causes of stress and remedies to cure the stress at different levels.

Introduction

Stress is the response of individual’s body and mind to anything that causes a difference in balance. It is a common aspect of many different emotions like frustration, anxiety, anger, fear, worry, sadness and despair. It is one of the conditions that can threaten one’s state of mind and well-being (Wahed and Hassan, 2017). It can affect everyone regardless of their age, gender, educational status or socioeconomic status (Monteiroa et al., 2014). For some people, stress may refer to an uncomfortable emotion, while for some, it is a situation that affects someone’s manner of thinking (Tandukar et al., 2020). Stress can be named as any situation that arouses negative thoughts and feelings in a person (Omar et al., 2019). The same situation is not stressful for all individuals, and all individuals do not experience the same negative thoughts and feelings during stress (Mamun et al., 2019). Family problems, improper coping strategies, lack of interest in studies, insufficient essential facilities for students and other difficulties (Shermeyer et al., 2019) are the factors which can result in high, level of stress that can eventually be detrimental to the students' health (Mehanna and Richa, 2006).

However, this does not apply to everyone since everyone has their own types of pressures that can be the reason for the stress itself (Johnson et al., 2009). These pressures can sometimes cause stress in day to day life of students (Darshan et al., 2013).So it is most likely for this group of people to be influenced with academic stress .

Students are susceptible to all kind of academic pressures where they continuously think they need to do well in their study and feels uncertain about their future (Cvetkovski et al., 2012). This type of mindset will eventually trigger mental (Andreassen et al., 2016) and emotional pressure, tension, or stress that occurs due to the demands of university life (Larcombe et al., 2016), which causes academic stress among university students(Pitt et al., 2018). It is necessary to find out academic stress among students to be able to provide the solution to reduce the probability of more students facing this problem.

Stress is a very common in life in which person experience it from the surrounding environment, body and thoughts (Gibbons, 2010). Stress generally affects one’s thoughts, feeling, and behavior (Koolhaas et al., 2011), which may lead to serious health repercussions such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes (Baune et al., 2012). There are many factors of stress such as finances, work, relationships, and other situations (Arslan et al., 2020). During facing challenges, individual response physically to protect us by activating “fight-or-flight” mode. Individual’s body produces a large quantity of adrenaline, non-adrenaline hormones and chemicals, which helps to increase mobilization of energy sources and also helps to adapt the individual to its new circumstance (Yusufov et al., 2019).

Types of Stress

Stress is of many types such as acute stress, episodic acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is common short-term stress that occurred (Anonymous, 2022). This is caused by continuous thinking about the pressures of situations recently occurred or upcoming in future. When the situations are solved, stress will automatically be reduced or removed (Lin et al., 2019). The continuous occurrence of acute stress may lead to chronic stress which is more harmful. An individual who has too many commitments and poor organization has episodic stress symptoms. It causes irritable and tense which can affect relationships. Presence of destructing events such as major financial problem, dysfunctional family or unhappy relationship with loved one can cause chronic stress. People with chronic stress are likely to experience breakdown which may result to serious consequences such as heart disease, violent actions, strokes and even suicide (Struthers et al., 2000).

Stress and Mental Health

Stress is governed by various means of psychological, mental, emotional, and physical and in other forms (Ryan et al., 2019). Stress evolves from unhealthy environment which can be from the unexpected childhood and goes till lifelong. Results state that Indians are the highest sufferers of stress because of lack of employment, intimate relationships, betrayal, unexpected childhood, etc. Most of the times it leads from childhood to intimate relationships with peer groups which are often justified by stressors to get rid out of stress. In order to get out of stress people get addicted to smoking, consuming liquor and drugs are common among adolescent and adults.

Approximately 395 million people worldwide currently suffer from such conditions, placing mental disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability. Stress is mostly likely to be common among youth especially between the age group of 20‒25 years. WHO (2001) predicts that 20% of India’s population will suffer from some form of mental illness by the year 2020.

Stress doesn’t spare anybody; Students are the ones who are worst hit by stress due to various factors. Stress results in various psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, emotional strain (such as dissatisfaction, fatigue and tension), maladaptive behaviors (such as aggression and substance abuse), and cognitive impairment (such as problems in concentration and memory (Jordon et al., 2010). All these conditions lead to poor concentration on work, and biological reactions causing cardiovascular disease. Many studies say stress directly related with psychological features such as creativity, broadening, relaxation and reframing. Some scholars argue that stress may lead to heart disease, blood pressure fluctuations and psychological problems.

Causes of Stress among Youngster

Those circumstances which produce stress are known as stressors, and they cover a whole range of situations such as academic pressure, relationship problems, career aspects, financial problems and so on. A result shows that students find out their life to be stressful when it comes to studies issues. They might be stressed with their exams, tutorials, assignments, projects and lab experiments etc. The second highest cause of stress in young people’s life is financial issues (Robotham, 2008). Youngster might have difficulties in financial due to poor family background and poor spending habits, involvement in clubs and organizations. Students who involved in clubs/ organizations might have difficulties in balancing their life between studies and organization activities. And there are students who feel stressful with future, time management.

Effects of Stress

Indeed, stress can affect the body, thoughts and feelings, as well as behavior. Being able to recognize common symptoms of stress can help to manage it. Stress which was left unchecked can contribute to many health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes and many more. There are five different aspects in the effects of stress which are discussed below:

Behavioural effects

Overeating or under-eating, drug or alcohol misuse, angry outbursts, use of tobacco, social withdrawal and exercising less are some of the behavioral effects of stress. From a study, data shows that majority of the students tend to have changes in their sleeping patterns and are having the inability to rest, relax or let down. Aside from that, there are some students who tend to outburst in anger when they are stressed and some students experienced changes in eating habits and some students want to stay quiet when stressed. It is necessary for the stressed persons go to find the ways to resolve their problems that are caused by the stress (Anonymous, 2021).

Psychological effects

A study shows the psychological or emotional effects of stress among students and based on the data, feeling sad, moody, grief and depression is the highest psychological effect of stress (Bewick et al., 2010). The second highest effect is followed by feeling of fear and anxiety which is experienced, and besides that, some students felt helpless or hopeless when they are stressed.

Physical effects

Headache, chest pain, fatigue, muscle tension or pain, change in sex drive, stomach upset, and sleep problems are some of the physical effects of stress. A study shows the physical effects of stress and the data depicted that all students are having effects in term of their health. The highest physical effect experienced by students is headache when they feel stressed. The next highest effect is followed by fatigue and increasing or decreasing in appetite. These physical effects can lead to much bigger health problem later (Anonymous, 2018).

Cognitive Effects

Anxiety, lack of motivation, lack of focus, restlessness, feeling overwhelmed, sadness or depression, irritability or anger etc. are the consequences of cognitive effects of stress among young generation.

Social effects

Social effects of stress among student’s shows by a study which depicted that majority of students chose to withdraw or isolate themselves from people when they are stressed. It can state that people prefer to be alone when facing stressful situations.

Sign and Symptoms of Stress

Stress is a normal human response which helps the body to adjust in new situations. During stress the body’s automatic nervous system controls heart rate, breathing, vision changes and more. When the body faces stressful situation, fight-or-flight response helps to deal with it. When an individual has chronic stress, continued activation of the stress response causes wear and tear on the body, physical, emotional and behavioral symptoms develop.

Physical symptoms of stress

Stress influences our body physiologically. Stress can cause ache and pain throughout the body, chest pain, and headache, muscle tension or jaw clenching and due to these entire factors person’s heart rate also alleviated. Sometimes stress may lead to some stomach or digestive problems such as diarrhea or constipation, and also causes nausea, dizziness or shaking, these problems weaken person’s immune system and increase the incidence of frequent cold or flu. Stress can trouble sleeping which leads to exhaustion and people also having trouble with sex. Due to excess stress people’s blood pressure also alleviated (Anonymous, 2021).

Emotional and cognitive symptoms of stress

Anxiety or irritability, agitation, depression or general happiness, panic attacks, moodiness or anger, sadness or feeling overwhelmed and constant worrying etc. are some of the common emotional symptoms of stress. If person does not share his/ her feelings and problems to others they feel loneliness and sometime feel isolated. Stress affects person’s mental ability which leads to memory problem and causes inability to concentrate. In stress negative thoughts occur generally, it leads to poor judgment and impact people’s perception (Anonymous, 2019).

Behavioural symptoms of stress

Stress does impact people’s behavior and leads to bad habits such as drinking alcohol too much or too often, smoking, using drugs, etc. (Sahu et al., 2022).Gambling, overeating or developing an eating disorder, insomnia or oversleeping and nervous habits like nail biting, all are the behavioral symptoms of stress. Participating compulsively in sex, excess shopping or constant internet browsing like behavior comes in person’s life (Anonymous, 2022).

Method to Relieve Stress

Stress management techniques can lower levels of stress, resulting in reduction of disease symptoms, lowering of biological indicators of disease, and prevention in life. Progressive muscle relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing techniques are effective treatment methods for reducing stress and anxiety that accompanies daily life and chronic illness (Kassymova et al., 2018)

Stress management strategies includes regular physical activity/ exercise, practicing relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, tai chi or massage, etc. (Azizi, 2011).Keeping a sense of humor and spending time with family and friends by just talking and sharing the problems also helps in reducing stress level. By diverting the mind by setting aside time for hobbies, such as reading a book, playing or listening to music also helpful in stress reduction. By playing with pets or kids, by taking proper sleep, eating healthy and balanced diet all techniques are helpful in managing the stress level. Through avoiding tobacco, drug or alcohol use, stress can be reduced. If the stress level is extreme and can’t handle by the person itself, then talk with therapist can be helpful and should take prescribed medication if necessary (Anonymous, 2020).

Many daily strategies can help to keep stress at bay like try relaxation activities like meditation, yoga, breathing exercises and muscle relaxation etc. Different programs are available online, in television, in smart-phone apps, and at many gyms and community centers. Find ways to let go of worry about situations at we cannot change. Stay connected with people who keep others calm, make happy, provide emotional support and help with practical things. A friend, family member, colleague or neighbor can become a good listener or share responsibilities so that stress doesn’t become overwhelming.

Conclusion

Stress is a common issue in everyone’s life, if handles effectively, it give the motivation to strive for their betterment. Some cope up stress efficiently, but most of them face negative impact of stress, so its management became important. Stress can be good or bad, it depends on us how we perceive or experiencing it including how well we cope with it. People should always be vigilant with stress, so that they can better themselves and move forward in life.

References

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