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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Stress have been present for as long as humans have existed.

Stress starts to be experienced this as people grow to being adults,

as they continue to have heavier sense of responsibility and have a

lot of work or school requirements that would cost them more time for

work than the hours they need for recharging their body. Many people

especially young adults – the most emotional and purpose driven age,

experience depression and anxiety for prolonged stress because of an

ineffective stress management, so they’d acquire other more health

issues due to stress created by various factors.

In the article of MedlinePlus (2018), stress is the body’s

response to a challenge or demand. According to Ehrenfeld (2018),

there are three types of stress Acute, Episodic Acute and Chronic

stress. Acute stress is a short term stress, it goes away quickly

which is experience by the majority and it sometimes help in managing

dangerous situations. People feel this when having a fight with their

colleague or partner or ski down a steep slope or when they experience

something new. Episodic Acute Stress is the same with Acute Stress but

it occurs more frequently. Meanwhile, Chronic stress last in a longer

period of time. This type of stress goes on for weeks or months.

Stress comes from many factors for example being stacked with a lot of

paper work to be done just a short period of time or uncertainty,

according to Scott (2019) this sources of stress is called

“stressors”. The symptoms of stress for cognitive symptoms are memory

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loss, inability to concentrate, poor judgment, anxious, and

pessimistic. For Emotional symptoms are depression, anxiety,

moodiness, and isolation. For Behavioral are eating more or less,

sleeping too much, and procrastinating. Lastly, for physical are head

aches, diarrhea or constipation, dizziness, rapid heart rate, and

frequent colds (authors)

In the article of Melbourne Child Psychology (2020), experiencing

stress have benefits like in terms of crisis and in dangerous

situations because it causes the release hormones that boost

performance on cognitive tasks and memory, it also keeps alertness and

pushes someone from an usual capacity of doing tasks . Though stress

have its benefits, experiencing Stress constantly or in a long period

of time is not good. Stress contributes to heart disease, asthma,

obesity, diabetes, Depression, and anxiety as enumerated by Griffin

(2014).

On the year 2018’s American Psychology Association annual

statistics report on Stress in America it has been found that 91% of

Generation Z- those of High School and college age said that they have

felt physical or emotional symptoms, such as anxiety and depression

associated with stress. Meanwhile, the generation of Baby Boomers and

early Generation Xers are less stressed because they had more free

range childhood, with less anxiety over safety, well-being and had

fewer academic pressures. According to Cabico and McCarthy (2019), a

survey was conducted globally to determine stress levels of 143

countries year 2018. Philippines is one of the participant on the

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survey and it said that 58% of the population has been experiencing

stress basing from the data of global well-being index that was

released. With this data, Philippines topped second for most stressed

country after Greece, having 59% of the population and Tanzania placed

third with the stress rate of 57%. With Hibbs and Rostains’ article

it’s been noticed that stress seem to start lurking around the younger

generation. In the article of Maideberg (2017), The pressure of school

work, family life, social life, and sports combined with relentless

media culture have made the young people more stressed than ever

before and in the research of Pascoe (2019), she concluded that

ongoing stress relating education has demonstrated negative impact on

the students’ learning capacity, academic performance and physical and

mental health.

Stress is inevitable but it’s bad effects are not so to be able

to surpass the life threatening effect of stress there is the term

“stress management” wherein this a set of techniques or programs

intended to help people deal more effectively with stress in their

lives by analyzing the specific stressors and taking positive actions

to minimize their effects as defined in Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine

(2008). And an effective stress management helps to break the hold of

stress has on a person’s life, so that he/she can be happier,

healthier, and more productive.

A research was conducted to the Bachelor of Science in

Information Technology students in Leyte Normal University by Mazo

(2017), he presented a statistical data for his similar and new

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responses on the causes of stress of students. Some of the responses

are examinations, conflict with someone and financial problems. With

this causes are the effects and coping mechanism of students on

stress. Mazo’s research concluded that there is a disparity in the

responses of female and male in the causes of stress and their coping

mechanism but it is seen that stress makes no discrimination as both

and male both experience stress and its effects.

Based on the data presented there is a need to show if the

students technique/s applies to all their causes of stress and if the

senior high school students have the same stressors and stress

management techniques that’s why the researchers want to conduct this

study further.

This research has a significance to the community because

through this research, the community may be able to help students to

cope with their stress more effectively and refrain the community

from judging the negative thoughts of students. Teachers may be able

to develop tips and tricks to reduce stress and build a stress

resistance to the students. Parents may be able to take action and

may help in making a better stress management strategies and help

their children refrain from experiencing stress. Lastly this research

has significance to students because through this research the

students may be able to discover more strategies of stress management

on specific causes.

This study aims to determine the causes and effects of stress to

senior high students and the importance of stress management among

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them.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Statement of the Problem

This qualitative research making use of the Phenomenology Research

Design intends to determine the stress management strategies among

senior high school students of kings college of the Philippines .

Specifically, this study sought to find answers to the following

questions:

1. What is/are the factor/s that causes stress to the students?

2. What is/are the effects of this factor/s to the students?

3. How do students manage their stress?