In today’s day and age, students strive to achieve perfect 4.0 GPAs or above to be even noticed by the most prestigious colleges. The journey starts in freshman year, when homework and tests are piled upon a student and only the most prepared students are able to manage their workload.

For others, however, the term “procrastination” and the cycle of “catching up” is all too familiar. The talk of the school has become narrow and far more focused on academics. Students under high stress are not able to discuss common interests or weekend events, but instead complain about their workloads.

In fact, according to a 2013 survey conducted by USA Today, “59% report that managing their time to balance all activities is a somewhat or very significant stress.” Thus, more than half of U.S. students find it extremely difficult to balance the obligations in their lives.

If it is a consistent routine to go to sleep at 2 AM, and it is impossible to relax during the week, this jeopardizes a student’s ability to progress as a person. High school is the time for a student to establish their personality. This is a period where a student is expected to determine and develop a passion for a field. However, through the constant anxiety students with a large workload experience, one cannot even hope to develop a deep passion for any subject.

Additionally, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2014, WA students have experienced increasing levels of stress from grade 9 to grade 11, the peak years of the high school workload. For example, 51% of 9th graders of 2014 experienced “somewhat or very high stress as a result of academic workload” for the 2014 school year. This percentage increases a whopping 10%, to 60% for 10th graders in 2014. The percentages reach their highest with 68% of 2014 juniors experiencing varying levels of stress due to academics.

The pressure that students undergo while trying to meet school expectations is one that is talked about frequently among students. However, while some parents and adults may not be somewhat aware of it, it is mostly a stressful ordeal that students share among themselves.

Many students believe that as a high school student, they are bound to lock themselves into a four-year period crammed with high intensity and stress with no relaxation. However, students should be able to enjoy this transitional stage into adulthood while still managing their school workload.

Instead, we should have trusted adults on board with students. Even if adults check in only every now and then, it can help students open up about their stress. This stress is most definitely damaging to a student’s emotional and mental state, and getting adults on board with a student’s schedule can make a student feel that they are not alone in this journey.

Students can better manage their lives by arranging scheduled meetings with a guidance or other kind of counselor, to help them further alleviate their stress. Though some may already have the occasional meeting with a guidance counselor, very few students have regular meetings to discuss their stressful workload.

These meetings with a trusted adult or guidance counselor should be at least every month, and might even run for a short ten minutes.  Additionally, according to a recent study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, “[S]cientists found that that a simple ten-minute conversation increased performance level on a battery of mental tasks.” Even a few minutes of talking about one’s stress level is enough to slow down the turning gears of high school.

Evidently, a student’s mental health and overall well-being can be severely impacted by high levels of stress. Giving WA students, especially those from grades 9 to 11, a short period of time to discuss their workload with a trusted adult, can truly benefit them in the long run.