By Elise Tran, Staff Writer
High school students are under a significant amount of stress and are filled with anxiety. Many students at Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) try to improve their resume by piling on many extracurricular activities and challenging classes until their day is filled. Beginning in high school, possibly even earlier, students start to prioritize their schooling over their mental and, sometimes, physical health.
It’s almost part of the rigorous, academic culture of this school. Some upperclassmen take three or more advanced placement (AP) classes with extracurriculars as the cherry on top. Students no longer take these courses because they want to learn or love the subject. Instead, they do it because it’s seen as a requirement to get into a decent college.
Cynthia Olaya, the school psychologist, said, “I believe students prioritize an idealized vision of their future over mental health and wellness. They have very black and white thinking about what their post-high-school options can include. For many of our students, they set their sights on a select few universities and believe that they are failures or losers if they can’t meet the basic requirements.”
Students risk their physical health as well. They’ll reduce the amount of sleep in order to make up for all of the studying and activities they do. The recommended hours of sleep for teenagers is eight to 10 hours, but only 15 percent actually sleep within those guidelines, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
“Students also believe that there is some sort of value in sacrificing health and wellness for academic achievement,” said Olaya. “This is perpetuated by their peers. Who sleeps the least and who gets the most A’s becomes a contest among friends. This is not healthy.”
The way high school students lead their lives carries into college as well.
At Yale University, a psychology course was open for registration this semester. Psyc 157, labeled Psychology and the Good Life, focuses on strategies for living a happier life through healthier lifestyles, making a positive change in behavior and more. The class garnered a massive amount of attention from undergraduate students. Six days after registration, 1,200 students had already enrolled in this course which makes up about a quarter of undergraduate students at Yale.
Students applied for this course mainly to relieve themselves from the stress. College students’ lives are so focused on education that they need to be taught how to be happy. That mentality stems from high school education. Students shouldn’t be taught how to be happy at that stage in life. It should start earlier— it has to.
Improvement starts now. Students should break out of the mentality that risking mental and physical health for school is normal. It’s important to know that there are many resources to improve mental health and that there are many, different paths to achieving success in life.
Olaya said, “Meeting with guidance staff and college and career specialists can help inform students of these realities and can teach them what they should and shouldn’t stress about. When we can alleviate some of the stress about academics, students might actually be willing to learn some other ways to resolve these issues: time management, balance in activities, learning to take care of themselves, having healthy relationships with others and having healthy expectations of themselves.”
