Running head: Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 1

Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlining the Possibilities of Stress Management

Courses
Matthew J. Szakmeister

Glenelg High School

Abstract
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 2

Academic stress has ravaged high schoolers, and nothing has been done to control it. This

issue has been on the rise, and it was therefore hypothesized that a stress management course

featuring meditation, mindfulness, and journaling and taught at school would be an appropriate

solution to this crisis. After researching many scholarly sources to help form a hypothesis, a

survey was sent out that assessed high schoolers opinions on a stress management course and

how well they could already manage their academic stress. It was found that they struggled to

manage their academic stress, and a significant number of students expressed that they would

attend a stress management course, and many students felt that meditation, mindfulness, and

journaling were skills that should be taught in such a course. This therefore upheld the idea that a

stress management course taught in school is an answer to the issue of academic stress and the

inability of students to manage it.

Table of Contents

Literature Review 4
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 3

Introduction 4

Meditation 4

Mindfulness 5

Journaling 5

Other Strategies 6

Transition to Data Collection 7

Data Collection 7

Methods 7

Participants 7

Materials 7

Procedures 7

Results 8

Discussion 10

Conclusion 11

References 12

Appendix 15

Literature Review

Introduction

Academic stress is nothing new, it has been around for a long period of time. However

recent research indicates just how much of an effect it has on people. Depression and anxiety are

known effects of academic stress and each has its own set of negative effects including higher

school dropout rates, substance use, lack of sleep, and physical health problems (Pascoe et al.,

2020). Higher levels of unemployment and welfare use were also linked to the higher stress
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 4

levels (Pascoe et al., 2020). Since depression in adolescence tends to remain, so do the bad habits

such as smoking and alcohol abuse (Naicker et al. 2013), and this obviously, is not good for

health. Additionally, in conjunction with this, those who need help are likely to not get it (Rossen

& Cowan, 2014), and it is time to change that. Because stress is such a prevalent issue in schools,

a stress management course should be taught that includes stress coping skills like meditation,

mindfulness, and journaling should be taught in school.

Meditation

Meditation has the ability to help students cope with academic stress through its ability to

relax. Meditation is “the feedback loop to the deep inner Self (the seat of knowledge, like DNA)

provides inner peace and bliss, which removes the accumulated stresses of life and improves

overall health” (Sharma, 2015). The goal of meditation is to calm and relax the mind and body,

and, as found by Valosek et al. (2021,) meditation can decrease anger levels, improve sleep

levels, and improve school performance. Oman et al. (2008) also found that meditation reduced

stress levels and fostered forgiveness towards others. This inversely says two things: firstly,

stress increases anger, takes away sleep, and takes away school performance, and additionally

that meditation is one way to walk back this effect. Stress, anxiety, and depression were all found

to be positively affected by meditation (Burns et al., 2011). A reduction in depression and

anxiety means the possibility of avoiding the negative consequences of academic stress are

possible with the right treatment, meditation being one of them. Meditation is not an easy skill to

learn and is much easier with the help of a professional. Because school is the only place where

so many students are forced to congregate, it is the easiest place to teach meditation.
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 5

Mindfulness

Mindfulness has the potential to help students cope with their academic stress.

Mindfulness is described as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in

the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment”

(Kabat-Zinn, 2003). This state of mind has benefits such as reducing stress and anxiety in

students (Gouda et al., 2016). Learning mindfulness therefore would have various benefits to

students and help reduce their academic stress by lessening their anxiety. Mindfulness needs to

be taught, and to teach the level of students that would desire to be taught, school is the best

place for this to be taught because most adolescents attend school.

Journaling

Journaling is a simple strategy that can help students release emotions and relieve their

stress. Journaling is just what it sounds like: writing, and there are many ways to go about it. One

could write with a specific purpose, or without one, and it isn’t confined to a specific way of

writing. However, one form of journaling that seems to be effective is gratitude journaling. In

this, students write about things they are grateful for. Doing this showed a significant increase in

being in a grateful mood (Froh et al., 2014). And gratefulness done over a long period of time

has been shown to improve mental health (Komase et al., 2021). With journaling, a student has

the ability to improve mental health and therefore reduce stress. However, this is a skill that

needs to be taught, and school is the best place to teach this because students are all at school.

Other Strategies

The strategies discussed above aren’t the only ones, but they are perhaps the simplest and

the best individual strategies. There are strategies, however, that involve other people. This
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 6

includes group counseling and outside support from people. These strategies have the ability to

do a lot for students who need help coping with their academic stress.

Group counseling has been found by Weare and Gray (2003) to promote emotional and

social competence, required skills for all in the real world. It has been found that when it comes

to school counseling, that small group counseling was more effective than individual counseling

which was found to have no effect (Whiston et al., 2011). This evidence base makes a very

strong point, when it comes to managing stress, group programs are more effective. A stress

management class would be a group, which would make it more effective. The best place to get a

group of students together is school because all the students are already in one place.

Additionally, outside support from others is key to helping adolescents cope with

academic stress. Friends and mothers have been found to be the most helpful mentally to

adolescents by Lisa Colarossi and Jacquelynne Eccles (2003). Social support also decreases the

effects of stress and depression (Wang et al., 2014). Building a support system is not easy

because it requires trust and confidence in others. However, learning how to make a strong

support system could have immense effects on students and help them better cope with the stress

in their lives. There is no better place to meet others and make bonds than at school, where

students spend a lot of time.

Transition to Data Collection

With all this information, it seems clear that these strategies are all effective in helping

ward off the effects of academic stress. The researcher then went forward to collect their own

data to determine the feasibility of a stress management course and what students believe should

be taught.

Data Collection
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 7

Methods

Participants: The survey was distributed to the Glenelg High School Gifted and Talented

Independent Research class, however there was a lack of responses. Therefore, it was distributed

to students from other Howard County Public School System high schools, and Glenelg Country

School. In total, 54 responses were collected from these students.

Materials: The survey was distributed through Google Forms and responses were analyzed

through Google Sheets.

Procedures: First, the survey was designed so that the researcher could gain a stronger idea of

stress levels and demand for a stress management course. Once this was completed, the questions

were reviewed to ensure clear wording and an absence of bias. Then, the survey was distributed,

the data was collected, and analyzed.

Results:

Question 4: How often would you say that academic stress negatively impacts your daily life?

(Examples include but are not limited to sleep loss, inability to concentrate, and overwhelming

anxiety.)
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 8

Of the surveyed population, 64.8%

reported that stress negatively
impacted their lives most of or all of
the time.

Question 7: How often do the stress management strategies you employ help you alleviate your

academic stress.

Just 22.2% of the surveyed population

reported that their strategies for
reducing academic stress were
effective most of or all of the time.

Question 9: Setting aside those strategies you've tried or currently use, which of the following

are strategies you feel you SHOULD try?

A majority of those surveyed felt that

they should meditate and learn
mindfulness, with journaling and deep
breathing not far behind.
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Question 10: Part of this research explores how best to include academic stress management in

the school curriculum. Given the optional opportunity, would you participate?

While a majority of students were

undecided, more students selected
“yes” then “no” suggesting that there is
a large enough population interested in
a stress management course to make it
worth creating.

Question 12: Which of the following things do you think should be taught in a stress

management class or activity?

A significant portion of students felt

that meditation, mindfulness, and
journaling should all be taught in a
stress management course, proving
that meditation, mindfulness, and
journaling are three of the best things
to include in a stress management
course.

Question 13: Do you feel like you would benefit from learning how to better cope with academic

stress?

Since so much of the students feel that

they need help dealing with stress, a
solution must be provided.
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 10

Discussion

A significant portion of the sampled population indicated that they believed that meditation,

mindfulness, and journaling should be part of a stress management course therefore supporting

the first part of my thesis that these are the best strategies to teach. Additionally, 31.5% of those

surveyed said that they would attend a stress management course with an additional 46.3%

remaining unsure. Even if only those who responded “yes” were to ever attend, this number of

all high school students in the Howard County Public School System who would attend would be

5,770 students (hcpss.org) using data from 2019. The population of the high schools has only

increased since then, suggesting the number likely would be higher now. Additionally, 77.8% of

those surveyed said that their strategies for managing academic stress were never effective, or

effective little or some of the time, and this is in conjunction with the 64.8% of students who felt

that their academic stress negatively affected their life most of or all the time. This emphasizes

just how big of a problem that academic stress has become among students, and how little they

know about helping themselves cope with it.

Conclusion

With all this data, it is quite clear that the student population is highly stressed. This is

quite concerning and needs to be addressed. The stress that students are under right now is at

levels that are much too high, and the demand for a stress management course is there. If even

5,000 students can be helped, it is certainly worth the financial cost to help. The strategies

explored earlier have proven to be the most useful , and this just further exemplifies the need for

a stress management course. Students don’t know strategies that are truly effective more often

than not, and the opportunity to correct this must not be ignored. The research has shown just
 Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 11

how deep the problem is and has outlined a strong strategy to potentially improve the stress

levels of students. Therefore, a stress management course featuring meditation, mindfulness, and

journaling, is a necessity to reduce student stress, and must be taught in school to reach the

maximum number of people.

References

Burns J. L., Lee, R. M., & Brown L. J. (2011). The Effect of Meditation on Self-Reported

Measures of Stress, Anxiety, Depression, and Perfectionism in a College Population,

Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 25:2, 132-144.

https://doi.org/10.1080/87568225.2011.556947

Colarossi, L. G., & Eccles, J. S. (2003). Differential effects of support providers on adolescents'

mental health. Social Work Research, 27(1), 19–30. https://doi.org/10.1093/swr/27.1.19

Froh, J.J., Bono, G., Fan, J., Emmons, R.A., Henderson, K., Harris, C.M., Leggio, H.M., &

Wood, A.M. (2014). Nice Thinking! An Educational Intervention That Teaches Children

to Think Gratefully. School Psychology Review, 43, 132 - 152.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02796015.2014.12087440

Gouda, S., Luong, M. T., Schmidt, S., & Bauer, J. (2016). Students and Teachers Benefit from

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in a School-Embedded Pilot Study. Frontiers in

psychology, 7, 590. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00590

HCPSS – Facts and Figures – HCPSS. (n.d.). Www.hcpss.org.

https://www.hcpss.org/about-us/facts/

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based interventions in context: Past, present, and future.

Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(2), 144–156.

https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.bpg016
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Komase, Y., Watanabe, K., Hori, D., Nozawa, K., Hidaka, Y., Iida, M., Imamura, K., &

Kawakami, N. (2021). Effects of gratitude intervention on mental health and well-being

among workers: A systematic review. Journal of occupational health, 63(1), e12290.

https://doi.org/10.1002/1348-9585.12290

Naicker, K., Galambos, N. L., Zeng, Y., Senthilselvan, A., & Colman, I. (2013). Social,

demographic, and health outcomes in the 10 years following adolescent depression. The

Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine,

52(5), 533–538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.12.016

Oman, D., Shapiro, S. L., Thoresen, C. E., Plante, T. G., & Flinders, T. (2008). Meditation

lowers stress and supports forgiveness among college students: a randomized controlled

trial. Journal of American college health : J of ACH, 56(5), 569–578.

https://doi.org/10.3200/JACH.56.5.569-578

Pascoe, M. C., Hetrick, S. E. & Parker, A. G. (2020). The impact of stress on students in

secondary school and higher education. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH, 25(1), pp. 104-112.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2019.1596823

Rossen, E., & Cowan, K. C. (2014). Improving mental health in schools. Phi Delta Kappan,

96(4), 8-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721714561438

Valosek, L., Nidich, S., Grant, J., Peterson, M., & Nidich, R. (2021). EFFECT OF

MEDITATION ON PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED STUDY.

Education, 141(4), 192+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A672902015/GPS?

u=glen20233&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=b6417ebe
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Wang, X., Cai, L., Qian, J. et al. (2014). Social support moderates stress effects on depression.

Int J Ment Health Syst 8, 41. https://doi.org/10.1186/1752-4458-8-41

Weare, K., Gray, G., & Great Britain. Department for Education and Skills. (2003). What Works

in Developing Children’s Emotional and Social Competence and Wellbeing? DfES

Publications.

Whiston, S. C., Tai, W. L., Rahardja, D., & Eder, K. (2011). School counseling outcome: A

meta‐analytic examination of interventions. Journal of Counseling & Development,

89(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2011.tb00059.x

Appendix
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Full Survey from Data Collection

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M entail pain such as, suicidal thoughts, resentment of ones self, depression and anxiety

physical stress

Stress about sports

general day to day anxiety

It's mostly academic stress.

social anxiety, feeling like i'm out of time

Addressing Academic Stress in Adolescents, Outlini 21

Existential dread I guess

yes. all of them.

N/A

Academic and Extracurricular stress

Work, family

Stress from being absent from school

stress with sports (trying to be perfect, the best I can be, making people proud (by not making
a mistake), etc)

Stress that leads to procrastinating, which leads to more stress, which is a cycle.

Additional stress from friendships/relationships or family stress can add onto academic stress

I procrastinate a lot and have recently lost almost all of my motivation. I feel stressed about a
few other things(like exercise, I feel like I have to do it in order to keep my muscle mass, even
if I dont want to). I also have very bad time management which usually leaves me little time to
sleep.

Family/friend stress - like getting along.

Emotional

all of them my guy

Wonderful survey!

Stress in if I'm the better player in a sport because their are very good players in terms of
soccer