Stress and young people
Most situations that produce psychological stress involve some sort of conflict between self and society. So long as we satisfy a social demand at the expense of a personal need, or vice versa, the social or personal demand for action is a psychological stress. If, for example, we stay home from work because of a personal problem, we create a new demand (for an explanation, for made-up time) at our place of work. On the other hand, If we devote too much time to the demands of work, we create new demands on the part of family. If we don’t manage our energy budgets well, we create more stress than is necessary.
The major task of psychological stress management is to find ways to balance and coordinate the demands that come from within with those that come from without. This is where a healthy sense of self and identify comes in. an integrated sense of identity… means bringing together into a working whole set of attitudes, values, and habits that can serve both self and society. The attainment of such a sense of identity is accompanied by a feeling of self-esteem, of liking and respecting oneself and being liked and respect by others.
More than anything else, the attainment of a healthy sense of identity and a feeling of self-esteem gives young people a perspective, a way of looking at themselves and others, which enables them to manage the majority of stress situation. Young people with high self-esteem look at situation from a single perspective that includes both themselves and others. They look at situations from the standpoint of what it means to their self-respect and to the respect others have for them. This integrated perspective enables them to manage the major types of stress efficiently and with a minimum expenditure of energy and personal distress.