It is December already, and final exams are coming up. You may be feeling stressed. If you’re a senior, you may be stressing out about college applications as well.
You may have heard about the negative effects of stress. Stress has been linked to higher risks of all sorts of diseases such as cardiovascular disease, depression, asthma, and more. Stress is your body’s physical response to conflicts or problems. It is a physical response that, evolutionarily, was meant to deal with physical problems. Your heart rate and breathing rate quicken and you often break into a sweat. These symptoms of stress prepare you for fight or flight, increasing blood flow and oxygen to your brain and muscles so you can move and think faster. However, in doing so your stress response suspends all non-essential body activities. Your immune system is suppressed, as well as other parts of your body such as the digestive system. This isn’t bad in the short term, because your body can direct that energy to keeping you alive when you are in danger. However, in the long term a suppressed immune system and body systems increases your risk for all sorts of diseases. As a student in today’s stressful world, the accumulation of stress can have negative effects on our young body’s and minds.