School Stress Rises with Start of School Year

By Nick Williams

During the first few weeks of the school year, most students begin to feel the stress build. It may be grades, sports, the jolting schedule change, or the pressure to perform from parents. No matter what the stressor may be, no student is alone in the feeling.

Being a student is tough, and back to school season can cause a lot of added stress. Rhitu Chatterjee wrote about some of these struggles with mental health in a story for NPR News, describing how stress can be present and increase at the beginning of the school year. Boston Superintendent Bob Mullaney told Chatterjee, “From the beginning, we've seen elevated levels of stress, anxiety, different behavioral issues in students.” Chatterjee’s article highlights how the student mental health crisis has heightened, particularly post-pandemic.

Chatterjee writes that “CDC data shows the proportion of mental health emergency visits for kids started going up early on in the pandemic. In the fall of 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Children's Hospital Association and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry declared an emergency in child and adolescent mental health.”

Photo from Moeller.org

AP Psychology teacher and Xavier Alum, Mrs. Jennifer Boggess, spoke with The Crusader about the importance of understanding mental health in students . When asked about how we could normalize the idea of high school students’ mental health, Boggess said, “As a society, we have to acknowledge that mental health is a real thing, and that having mental health problems is a real thing, too.” Throughout the interview, Boggess talked about ways to try and keep good mental health throughout the school year. Boggess recommends, “Movement. Movement helps with our nervous system, which helps with feeling of anxiety. And movement makes us feel more free and better so it can help with depressive aspects as well.”

 If you’re ever feeling stressed out or just not feeling like yourself, talk to your counselor, your mentor group teacher, or a classmate who cares. Especially now, there are apps and websites that you can download to help monitor your mental health too.