Balancing Academic Pressure
Academic pressure isn’t just a trendy term, it’s a raging force in today’s society. It includes the vast and broad impact that it can have on teenagers’ mental health, leading to many other psychological problems that have long-term impacts on us. Teenagers are mostly pressured by their family members, to achieve better results than them in competitions, or to be better than their peers, leading to a feeling of overwhelm and disappointment.
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In this article, we will be exploring the many ways teenagers can overcome these struggles and how they can find balance between academic success & mental well-being.
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Common sources of academic stress include: exams and grades, societal expectations, transition periods, difficulty in time management, perfectionism, lack of support, heavy workload and much more. Today, we will only be talking about a few of the points mentioned above and provide some other activities that can help in work-life balance.
- Exams and grades
After exams, there’s a lot of interest in each other’s grades, especially the top students’ grades. These top students always feel pressured to score the highest scores, while others fear of scoring low. To avoid being part of a nosy group of students, be kind and focus on your own education and success. Aim to be in a social circle including people that want to make a positive difference in society and where everyone is happy about each other’s successes and celebrate them together.
- Difficulty in time management
Teenagers have difficulty in time management since they don’t label their activities into groups that matter to them. In order to improve your time management skills, you should plan out your days and weeks. By doing so, you will be much more prepared for the days ahead and won’t be surprised with upcoming tests, leading to less stress in exams as well. To reach your maximum potential, you should set short-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals help to advise you on your next few steps, meanwhile long-term goals help to map out your future.
- Perfectionism
Teens always strive for perfection, because they think that by doing so they will be better than their peers. But in reality, Einstein also made mistakes that we might have not noticed before, but in the end he still succeeded. A crucial step in perfectionism is being self aware of it and working towards the disappearance of it. In order to do so, we need to ask ourselves 2 important questions:
- How can I complete this task more quickly?
- How can I simplify my approach to achieve my goal?
From the answers of those questions we need to make a plan. The next few steps will be followed with action in our daily lives.
In order to minimize the effect of academic pressure on teenagers, we need to allocate specific times in our lives to do the things we love and enjoy doing, whether that is reading, exercising, spending time with family and friends, hobbies and interests, or journaling.
If you find scrolling on the internet relaxing and fun, sure, do just that, but everything has a limit including your screen time. According to a 2023 report by Qustodio, teenagers spend an average of 7 hours and 22 minutes per day on screens, which is a lot considering that it’s only an average number. From the screens we get a lot of health problems that we are very aware of so there’s no need to put emphasis on it, so consider those problems before you take the burden upon your shoulders of dealing with many health problems.
I hope this article was informative and helpful to you, while simultaneously changing some of your beliefs for the better. Don’t be discouraged by society and the way that people act, but keep working hard for yourself and all of your hard work will pay off.
