Data | accentus

To understand what these levels correlate to, click here.

This data is both frightening and optimistic. Although most students are around a level 3 of stress, which isn't too horrible, many have experienced a level 6 or 7 which involve panic attacks and thoughts of suicide. 70% of students should never have reached such a state. The good news is, many students want to have a lower level of stress, mainly a 1 or 2, which means that they are consciously aware of the problem.

It seems that the majority of students stress out at least once a day, and this isn't talking about minor tugging thoughts of 'oops I need to do this' but serious, inhibiting thoughts of all that needs to be done, low self-esteem, an abundance of expectations, etc.

Regretfully, college is more important than learning in school proving that although students may have an interest in the subject material and mastering it, they are more focused on doing what they can to get into their top schools. Our values and aspirations are not heading in the direction they should be. However, it is superb that students are concerned about their mental health meaning that, in the future, this graph might look a whole lot different!

Sadly, tests, finals, and homework--academia--and pressure--from students and parents are the top of this list of the factors of stress. Students are living their lives around getting top marks and getting all of their work done. However, they are facing an attack on both sides, with pressure from parents and classmates adding another load of obligations and stress. At least students aren't as concerned about appearances which was a major source of student discomfort.

Data Collection 1

This data comes from a survey we conducted in 2015 of the factors, levels, and frequency of stress and opinions on taking breaks. This data is from real high school students primarily in California but it also has responses from ones across the country. The sample size was less than 100. Scroll to the bottom of the page to take our newest survey!

Data Collection 2

This data comes from a survey we conducted just a few weeks ago in 2016 of the factors, levels, and frequency of stress and opinions on happiness, help, and support. This data is from real high school students in California, primarily Mountain View High School. The sample size was greater than 200.

It looks as though most students consider themselves to be happy often or sometimes.

Being in a good mood - Feeling of wholeness, purpose, and content - Fulfilling personal goals - Makes me feel good about myself - Not feeling sad - Nothing is dragging your mood down - Enjoying life, loving, and laughing - In a peaceful state - Forgetting your problems - Video games - State of understanding and content - Euphoric sensation - When the people around me smile - Feeling safe - Doing what you love - Food - Having high spirits - Not stressed or mad - Enjoying yourself - Being at peace with your existential crisis - Confidence and joyfulness - Being relaxed - Balance - Comfortable - Reflecting and nourishing my soul - I can pursue what I want - Surrounded by people I love - Freedom

We asked what students defined as happiness and posted some of the responses here. It's interesting to see that not one person brought up money, fame, or jobs beyond doing what they love. Most had to do with being around people they love, feeling positive, content inner thoughts, and doing activities that were relaxing or joyful.

Most students think that they have some control over their stress but do not seek help when they are overly stressed. It seems that many take the responsibility to manage their own stress. Students didn't feel that their stress was a danger to them, cared strongly about the stress of those close to them, cared for their own mental wellbeing and happiness, and also felt strongly about reducing their own stress.

Across the board, students feel as though their stress has increased.

School work is still the most stress inducing but in terms of expectations, the ones students create for themselves is weighted as more stressful than those given by their peers or parents. It's also important to note that mental health is also a factor of stress but that students are aware that it is problematic--which might be a good thing. The other factors, not listed on the pie chart, in descending order, were socializing, classroom environment, family life, social media, and finances.

We were curious to know whether students actually knew if they had serious stress (many had said that they didn't think their stress was dangerous to them) so we asked them whether they had experienced some of the symptoms of serious stress. The most frequent symptoms included headaches and low energy which indicate that students ar not getting enough rest. The next most frequent included upset stomach, muscle pain, and insomnia. Upset stomach and muscle pain indicate that the body is becoming physically stressed as a result of internal thoughts; students are so worked up over what they need to do or feel that they feel sick or tense.

Most students don't ask for help, or if they do, it is a rare occurrence. This begs the question of what is stopping students from asking for help. Is there a stigma attached? Do they not have someone they trust? Do they believe nothing can help them? Or do they assume that the stress they face is normal and therefore can be handled alone? We need to find a way to spark more conversations about student stress to help remedy their stress.

Support systems by far seem to appeal to people the most. That means that students would rather look to family or friends, people they trust and love, for help than to the other treatments. A second favorite was animal therapy which suggests that people would rather interact with another being who can provide comfort than the more introspective techniques. Finally, mindfulness is the most popular of the 3 introspective techniques.

The number one source of help was a friend, followed by a parent/guardian and YouTube. This begs the question of why students prefer a friend to a parent: is it because of trust, empathy, age difference (in when they went to school), or something else? Additionally, we are wondering why students look to YouTube and what content they are viewing: is it videos on dealing with stress, advice from YouTubers, or something else?

We wanted to compare the levels of stress people face in regard to their most common, desired, and highest reached level. We wanted to see whether there were major changes to the last time we took this survey. However, this data is may not be entirely accurate as we had some confusion in what the questions were asking for. If you scroll down, you can see how the two charts compare. Because there was some misunderstanding, we don't want to draw conclusions from this data.