What Is Stress?

What is stress? Stress is simply a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our physical or mental equilibrium. Stress is a big problem in the world today and is mostly affected by teenagers. Stress is also classified to being “an internal state which can be caused by physical demands of the body or by environmental and social situations, which are evaluated as potentially harmful, uncontrollable, or exceeding our resources for coping”. No matter age or race everyone has experienced stress and has been affected by it in different ways whether it be emotional, physically or mentally it affects everyone.

When we think of stress we immediately think of suicidal thoughts or psychological actions, it's more than that. Stress can have both negative and positive effects especially if you can gain something from it. Positive and negative stressors can be things such as; changes in your body, family and school conflicts, financial problems and environmental and social causes. These things can either break or make a person depending on how they take it and how long they have let these issues build up can determine if they make it a positive or negative factor.

Stress is not always harmful. In fact, it is recognized that “low levels of stress can even help for better performance”. For example, a student like myself, senior in high school, can prepare well for an upcoming examination only if I have some stress. It may sound ridiculous but it is in fact true. When I know I have a lot of pressure on my hands it makes me focus a lot harder. Stressing for an exam can encourage me to want to make more of myself, study harder, work exceedingly better and not hang out with