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Stressors and Stress Coping Mechanism among Grade 12 Students

Literature Review:

Students face different challenges in terms of their academic situation, family situation, friends and many more. People who encounter stress lead them to rapid changes in the body, such as feelings of emotional unrest that cause them to feel pain in the body. Many students face stress as they try to mix up school and work, while they also try to have time with family and friends. Stress is inescapable as it associates with any peripheral occurrence that could be enjoyable or intimidating (Yikealo & Tareke, 2018). For some students, stress becomes a way of living. However, constantly being under stress is not healthy and can lead to terrible effects too. Therefore, students need to create, find or discover a coping mechanism that will suite their needs and be healthy for them. Managing stress is crucial for human endurance and can be characterised as the way toward taking care of outside or inside burdens that are affirmed as challenging on individual abilities and assets (Rout & Rout, 1993).

There are a lot of possible stressor that can affect the students. One of them is the pressure of getting high grades Earning high grades is a source of stress that affects them to succeed in making good impressions to their parents, classmates and friends. According to Presnall (2008), college students are more vulnerable to school related issues. They are affected by emotional and mental health. In addition, 2,253 undergraduate students aged 18 to 24 were randomly selected from schools across the country and identified financial, relationship, family problems and extracurricular activities. Students who have experienced stress believe that drinking alcohol, using drugs and hanging out with friends are their immediate solutions to their stress. Alcohol and drugs are one of the unhealthy ways of coping through the stress and according to Prather (2013), keeping things into perspective, having fun with hobbies, and enjoy indulgences in moderation are secrets to stress busters. This should be the case when trying to unwind from stress, because some coping mechanism are especially bad for students and can be harmful, resulting in adding more problems and stress for them to experience. In a sense bad coping mechanisms are poisoned apples that you eat because you need it to fill the hunger but it leaves you more hungry than ever. Its an endless or bottomless black hole that would never be enough, that's why you have to make sure you are coping through the stress in a healthy fashion and not adding more to it in the long term scale.

As mentioned, students are exposed to diverse types of stressors, such as academic burden and their coping mechanism differs. There are some coping mechanism that can be deemed unhealthy like drinking alcohol and using drugs. This are unhealthy and only make matters worse. The coping strategies used more than once by learners to minimize stress include effective time management, social assistance, constructive reassessment, and commitment to a comfortable interest. Lastly, stress is a natural part of our lives but it wouldn't be there every time. It's okay to feel down and sad as if the world is going to end, however you have to remember that once it passes life would still be there offering you respite and happiness as long as you know how to enjoy it and use stress to make you better rather than a handicap.