One topic that has reached a total consensus at Midlo High is that school creates undue stress. With the combination of homework, studying, sports, clubs, as well as many more activities, students barely have a second to spare during the school year. Hours spent on homework can range anywhere from 10 minutes to all day. If a student takes an IB/AP class, the workload can reach 3 hours per class (according to http://www.ibo.org/). Some upperclassmen challenged themselves by taking 3,4,5, or maybe even 6 AP/IB classes, meaning that they could have up to 9 hours of homework every day. Students who participate in after school activities can end up getting way less sleep than they should due to a large workload along with sports and clubs. Lack of sleep proves problematic for teens and definitely provides a large cause of stress among students.

In addition to the academic stressors that students deal with every day, teachers, staff, and students also struggle with biological stressors, environmental stressors, cognitive stressors, personal behavior stressors, and life situation stressors. Stress not only harms the person experiencing stress; it also affects those around him. All of the forms of stress have different, yet consistently harmful, effects on mental, physical, and social health. Learning how to manage stress should be a priority for everyone.

For more information on discovering new and effective ways to alleviate unwanted and unhealthy stress, please join Mrs. Mindy Conklin from HCB2, along with fellow students, on Wednesday, March 1, 2017, from 2:00 – 2:45 pm in room 400. Mrs. Conklin will help to provide different tactics that anyone can use to help deal with these forms of stress. Physical Education teacher Mrs. Renee Fiege encourages all students, teachers, and faculty to come and learn how to improve their health and knock out any unhealthy stress.