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| Students Tackle Stress By: Laura McCloskey A teenage girl attending a Catholic high school felt extremely stressed out. Her head and stomach ached, she was not sleeping enough, and felt in over her head. Sound familiar or feel familiar? This story represents one of the many teens throughout the United States experiencing stress in their lives, especially related to school. It’s no wonder teens feel this way considering 80% of all adolescents don’t get the sleep need. Even worse, 30% of all teens resort to cutting themselves to relieve stress and suicide rates for students in middle school and up have increased 78%. Unlike most students feeling stressed, this teen attending Catholic school did something to change her reality. She joined an organization called Stressed Out Students (SOS). Denise Clark Pope, a Stanford University lecturer, started the organization after researching the affects of stress on students and writing the book, Doing School: How We are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students. SOS brings students together with school administrators, teachers, counselors and parents to improve students’ health, school engagement, and academic integrity. Currently, SOS partners with schools to help students and schools manage the demands of home, school, work, and life in general. Schools attend a conference at Stanford University to address the issue. A group from each school, including students, develops an action plan to address the issues of stress at their school. SOS provides six months of coaching to the school, in some cases providing student assemblies and teacher training related to managing stress and addressing issues of student health. The schools reconvene at Stanford and evaluate the effectiveness of their action plan. Some schools find the experience has such a positive impact on their school that they attended the SOS conference four years in a row. According to Pope, the student members of the SOS groups from each school wind up being some of the most valuable members of the school groups. “They are the ones living this problem and often are the best ones to solve this problem,” says Pope. Students push for change in the important issues like longer lunch periods, and school administration listens. Pope recalls one group of students that led the creation of a new honor code at their school. They wrote the new honor code out, voted on it, revised it, and now laminated copies of the new honor code are posted in every classroom at their school. The teenage girl attending the Catholic school served on the school group developing the action plan at the SOS conference. At the conference, she had an eye-opening experience and decided she did not want to lead a stressed out life anymore. She changed her daily schedule, focused on what she wanted to do, and even started a club at her school for mental health issues. She wound up doing better academically and got into a great college. At another school, the assistant editor for the school newspaper attended the SOS conference and started using the newspaper to promote change. He wrote lots of columns relating to improving conditions at school for students including topics like the importance of sleep and the truth behind college admission. He became an activist for improving the realities of his friends who he saw dealing with stress. Another group of students that attended the SOS conference as part of their school group put together a website to spread awareness. http://www. missionsos.net/ The group went back to school, recruited more members and now spreads their messages of health and well-balance by distributing bookmarks to students. The bookmarks tell students how to look for signs of distress in fellow students. The group also provides lunchtime activities like yoga. If issues of stress affect your life as a student, there are actions you can take: Get the basics: Get more sleep – over 9 hours a night, incorporate more downtime, and eat lunch. Without sleep, your memory gets impacted and you get sick more often. Stop over-scheduling: Schedule fewer activities to provide more time for sleep. Reduce your number of AP and honors and classes and extra curricular activities. Make sure to anticipate how much time you need for homework and down time. Are you spending too much time IMing? Try scheduling more “unplugged” time. Know the signs of stress and depression: When friends even joke about committing suicide, take it seriously. Call for help. Looking at college as a match, not a name: find a college that suits your interests rather than attending the college that you think will bring you the most prestige. SOS has received national praise for their work. Denise Pope has discussed the issue of students and stress on CNN and in the New York Times. With their success, SOS plans on expanding their services. They have already developed student, parent, and teacher surveys to help with the effectiveness of their intervention. They plan on developing a parent and teacher curriculum to more directly address the issues of stress in schools. To find out how you and your school can get involved, go to the Stressed Out Student website at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/sosconference/ |
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