Overworking oneself is the leading cause of stress in teenagers.
Tests, in general, are always really stressful for students. Which makes exams really difficult for students to manage their stress.
Exam season is a rough two weeks of studying for four different exams. These exams include every topic students have learned throughout the year leading up to the exams.
There are always a few of students who will start studying in December to try and get ahead, which allows their stress level to be a little lower for exams in general because they are more likely to be prepared.
However, this doesn’t take away all the stress. According to Mrs. Leffler, “Students are stressed about the thing right in front of them,” meaning that in any situation that tests a student’s knowledge right in front of them, they are going to be stressed.
As soon as exam season is over, students are tired and feel as though they deserve a break. Dr. Weissenberger said, “When students are tired and depleted, it makes it harder to deal with stress”
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This can make workloads feel more intense and give students less motivation for their grades from their amount of stress.
Mrs. Leffler said, “Little bit of drop in effort from students post exams”.
Students feel that the whole point of the beginning of the year is to work towards this point of exams where their knowledge will be tested. That’s when students are willing to work the hardest because they know that eventually, they will be tested on this knowledge.
However, after exams, they don’t have any more of this rush of working towards a goal and just want to be done.
Mrs. Leffler and Dr. Weissenberg agree and said, “Students have been working hard and feel like they deserve a break to avoid becoming burnt out.”
This feeling of needing a break can consume students during the last two weeks before break. They feel like they are starting to fall behind, and there is no point in keeping up their effort and grades because the trimester is basically over.
Mrs. Leffler said that because students are so ready for the break, she avoids piling on work. Instead, she is having her students continue with the essay they started pre-exams, and although an essay is stressful, it’s over the course of a couple weeks, giving her students some room to breathe.
Students just need to be revived and have some time to relax before jumping into another type of stress, which they did not receive post-exams.
Dr. Weissinburg said that when teenagers are stressed, it makes it hard to deal with different aspects of their lives. Most teenagers do not yet know how to navigate stress, so it just continues to pile on.
She said, “It seems like a lot, and students feel like it is unfair, which is completely valid.”
