Struggling Through High School
Everyone has struggled during their lives constantly. Life is a struggle. But in high school more teens are affected by life just because so much is already going on with our bodies and minds that they seem to affect us more and sometimes they do affect us more in ways that we are not able to handle or comprehend. But we seem to have more struggles going on in highschool then at separate times in our lives. High school is also said to be one of the most memorable times of our lives for so many reasons. It’s when we really are meant to go off, start our lives, and create our destinies. When we start to begin to prepare for all this. But there are so many things that play into factors before all of this.
According to TeenInk.com Sseliagh says that she believes “Highschool is beinning to be too much.” Further discussed in Ehow.com By Aramenta says, “Adults often look back on high school as four of the best years of their lives. While not having a family to feed and rent to pay can certainly make high school a relatively carefree time, high school students struggle with pressure from several different areas.” Earlier in school when we are younger, we are less mature so things have a lesser weight on our shoulders than they would in high school. But in high school we are already trying to graduate so we can move on with our lives so when something comes up and puts a pause or causes a dilemma in that it stresses us out more. Also during adolescents there are many biological and neurological factors that go into play. On this website about adolescents it was stated that, “Adolescence is also a time of increased emotional reactivity. During this period, the social environment is changing such that more time is spent with peers versus adults, and more conflicts arise between the adolescent and his/her parents (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 1977; Steinberg 1989). These changes in social interactions may influence the rise of emotional reactivity. In addition, given the increase in risky choices and behavior during adolescence, it appears the value of positive and negative information may be exaggerated. Greater emotional reactivity and sensitivity during adolescence may play a role in the higher incidence of affective disorder onset and addiction during this developmental period (Pine et al. 2001; Silveri et al. 2004; Steinberg 2005) A number of cognitive and neurobiological hypotheses have been postulated to explain why adolescents engage in suboptimal choice behavior. In a recent review of the literature on human adolescent brain development, Yurgelun-Todd (2007) suggests that cognitive development during adolescence is associated with progressively greater efficiency of cognitive control and affective modulation. An increase in activity in the prefrontal regions as an indication of maturation (Rubia et al. 2000; Rubia et al. 2006; Tamm et al. 2002) and diminished activity in irrelevant brain regions (Brown et al. 2005; Durston et al. 2006; Monk et al. 2003) are described as the neurobiological explanation for the behavioral changes associated with adolescence. This general pattern, of improved cognitive control and emotion regulation with maturation of the prefrontal cortex, suggests a linear increase in development from childhood to adulthood.” This is showing how many factors come into play when it comes to teens and how they handle or deal with stressful or adolescent situations.
All of the changes that are going on in the human body during this time are simply the stages it takes to get from being a teen to an adult. Which includes a lot of things going on in your brain that trigger emotions and feelings that we don’t know how to react to or just have no idea how to handle. We have new impulses and new ideas that we would have never considered at a younger age. For instance, the grey matter of the brain, which contains most of the brain’s neurons and is knows as the part of the brain that thinks, is still growing in teens. However for adults, the brain’s grey matter development is complete. Alongside this is the still developing frontal cortex, which completes its growth during the ages 23–26. The frontal cortex performs reasoning, planning, judgement, and impulse control, necessary for being an adult. This might explain a teens tendency to make poor decisions an inability to discern whether a situation is safe. On the other hand, in adults, the frontal cortex is fully developed. They are able to process and organize information. Adults, who are emotionally and physiologically healthy, are able to judge risky behavior and factor in decision-making the consequences of their choices. Teens might rely on their amygdala, the part of the brain dealing with emotions, whereas adults rely more on their frontal cortex, leading to balanced thinking and behavior.
From my personal experience with my life and my friends I’ve seen first hand the many emotions and situations that come into play. I’ve dealt with friends being so confused and scared with what they are feeling that they don’t know how to handle it or cope. Sadly though suicide is a big issue in adolescents. Studies show that among high school students 44% of girls and 15% of guys are attempting to lose weight, about 20% of teens will experience depression before they reach adulthood, and 75% of girls with low self esteem reported in engaging in negative activities such as cutting, bullying, smoking, drinking or eating disorders. Not to mention how some teenagers don’t even resort to those things, some of them will feel the need to take their own lives. Suicide is also a factor in adults,but more statistics said that suicide is the second leading cause of death in ages 10–24. I feel like more emphasis is put on that event when adolescents do it because of the fact that people know they had so much life ahead of them. More teens die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, combined. This is not mention depression, anxiety, home issues, society, conformity, bullying, abusive relationships, eating disorders, graduation, grades, and so many more that teens have been seen to struggle with during high school. But I feel that there is no really right or wrong way to come at things in highschool or know how to handle them. Because nobody is born with a book that says what is going to happen to you in your future, how it’s going to impact you, and how you should handle it. Or else life would be a whole lot more boring and easy. For instance, a sudden event could put your whole life on a rollercoaster and make the easy and important things stop. But humans weren’t made to be stagnant. We were made to live our lives and follow our dreams and ambitions and we’re driven to be happy. So even though teenagers have an extremely hard time in high school juggling so many things for the most part we all continue to strive for happiness.
