Reply 1

Stress is one of the leading diseases in the USA. The state of strain and stress in adolescents is also on the rise (Sigfusdottir et al., 2017). Stress is an illness that may influence criminalbehavior , emotional health. Strain impacts human physiology, biology and may engender delinquent behavior. There are several theoretical perspectives that explain stress in adolescents and give directions for future research. The environmental, biological, as well as other factors, impact the likelihood of development of stress and strain in the future. Stress impacts the behavior of adolescents and manifests in the form of substance abuse, self-inflicted harm, delinquency, and suicidal behavior. Stress results when teenagers experience certain events in their lives, which they are unable to handle. Stress affects emotional reactions, physiology, and harmful behavior. Presently, the studies that combine the biological perspective with social problems are scarce (Sigfusdottir et al., 2017). Stress causes anxiety which a lot of adolescents suffer from. Several environmental factors impact the young during their early development that may lead to stress. Stress develops due to threatening events, and if the individual does not have any mechanisms to cope with stress, then it harms the body. A lower socioeconomic status and past poor relations can give rise to stress.

Science has also proven that sociological processes and environmental factors affect the biology of the individual.There are several interconnected biological systems that get impacted from stress. Harsh parenting and association with deviant peers’ results in stress. The use of drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol increase the likelihood of stress.Neuropsychological sequelae associated with a stressful situation, fundamentally to working memory and the ability to learn both in the short and long term. Let us remember that the person with anxiety often has difficulty coping with everyday problems and making decisions. The brainstructure involved in these cognitive processes is the hippocampus.These deficits limit, among others, the ability to monitor plan-directed behavior. Frequent situation in the addicted population. Neurocognitive training will increase the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, essential in the learning process and in the sensations of pleasure, in the caudate nucleus. Raising dopamine concentrations not only helps to fix knowledge, but also to improve our emotional state. The amygdala, a brain structure connected to the hippocampus, would be responsible for emotional learning. 

Sigfusdottir, I. D., Kristjansson, A. L., Thorlindsson, T., & Allegrante, J. P. (2017). Stress and adolescent well-being: The need for an interdisciplinary framework. Health Promotion International, 32(6), 1081–1090. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daw038

Reply 2

Adolescence is a time in human development marked with physical and social changes. It is as the age range between 13—19 years with their different phases in between. One of such changes is how an individual responds to stressors. Stress is a fact of life, and the type of stressors one experiences and how one responds to them changes throughout one’s life. Adolescent stage of development is marked by significant shift in these stressors, resulting in heightened stress-induced hormonal responses. Again, pertubations of the maturing adolescent brain may contribute to the increase in stress-related psychological dysfunctions such as anxiety, depression, and drug abuse often during this stage of development. Among stressors that uniquely affect adolescents are violence, peer pressure, social networking, family pressure, identity confusion and bullying.

Bullying is “an aggressive behavior that is intentional, repeated, and involves a power imbalance” (Falkner, 2018) and continues to be a growing concern which can lead to consequences such as self-harm or ultimately suicide. Teen suicide is by far the worst stressor, and a concerning problem because of its consequences on the adolescent’s health, psychological and social development, and adjustment. Bullying is a growing concern, affecting nearly 20–30% of students who admit to being the perpetrator or victim of such harassment (Jantzer et al. 2015). Research has shown that three groups of individuals who are directly involved in bullying are namely bullies, victims, and bully/victims, each with different yet overlapped characteristics associated to bullying incidents in their lives. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) recommends that health providers screen children and adolescents for behavioral and mental concerns caused by bullying (Russell, 2020).

Social networking has some positive and negative influences on adolescents. Many adolescents go to the social media to get connected to friends and explore relationships and friendship. Many also are badly cyber bullied or harassed that they get into depression. Whereas a good number also get to be drawn into violence through violent movies in the media network. The general agreement is that the human brain is underdeveloped until the age of 25, meaning that the adolescent lacks emotional maturity which leads to an increase in at risk behaviors.

Adolescents have greater stress from family particularly when their expectations are exceedingly high and they cannot meet their parents’ expectations (Gupta, A., & Harjai, 2016). Adolescents, these days think they must prove or have more to prove to their parents that they are capable of being successful in life beginning from their school results. Familial pressure which without support and proper coping mechanism can lead to suicide. With increased cases of cyber bullying, and depression, teen suicide is also on the rise, making it the second leading cause of death among adolescents (D’Amore, 2017).

References

Crowley, B. Z., & Cornell, D. (2020). Associations of bullying and sexual harassment with student well-being indicators. Psychology of Violence. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/vio0000345

Gupta, A., & Harjai, S. (2016). Stress management for adolescents: A review. Int J Rec advanc Multidisc Res, 3, 1913-1918.

Russell, B (2020) The Teenage Brain: The Stress Response and the Adolescent. Retrieved from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov