Developing Stress Tolerance: How to Thrive Under Pressure
Building stress tolerance is key to academic success. This post explores how students can develop resilience under pressure – and how study skills coaching can support that growth.
The ability to manage stress and function effectively, even under pressure, is rooted in executive functioning. Executive function encompasses a set of mental skills that are rooted in working memory, mental flexibility, and self-control. These skills are crucial for academic success and overall well-being.
The recent pandemic has brought about a significant increase in mental health challenges, particularly among students. Stress and anxiety can impair executive function, leading to decreased focus and academic performance. While schools have traditionally prioritized academic skills like math, there is a growing recognition of the need to equip students with strategies to cope with stress effectively. Stress is an inevitable part of growing up, and learning to manage it is essential for personal and academic development. Fortunately, developing stress tolerance is not mutually exclusive from academic rigor; in fact the two can work together synergistically.
Stress as a Part of Life
Stress is an inherent part of life, and there is no shortage to its sources. From school and work to family and finances, we encounter various personal stressors daily. Systemic issues, which set the stage and contours of how we live are daily lives, affect folks in numerous additional and intersecting ways. All that to say, to be alive is to be confronted with one challenge or another! How might this inform how we structure our days?
One approach may be to say “I should seek to reduce and eliminate all stress in my life.” The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests this might be counterproductive. For any task we care about (be it studying for a test, caring for a loved one, or practicing drills for our sport), we may experience stress – and this is useful! It is our body’s way of “priming” for action and performance; it’s a sign that we are invested and want to do well. What we are looking instead is for that Goldilocks zone, where we are neither apathetic nor filled with anxiety, but actively engaged in the task at hand.
One perspective I find grounding is to take a step back and consider what our relatives in the natural world face, and how they deal with the stressors of living. In particular, plants are amazing beings to consider – they are literally rooted in place, and have to adapt to whatever challenges are thrown at them in a given environment! A few of my personal favorites:
Mangrove species, living in brackish or seawater, are pros at filtering out salt to ensure their supply of fresh water. Some species literally have salt crystals that form on their leaves! Thriving in a harsh environment of normally toxic levels of salt, they have adapted to take what is needed from their environment and let the rest pass by.
Growing in the desert, succulent species face the constant challenge of balancing taking in carbon dioxide while also holding on to their valuable water supply. Their solution? A unique metabolism that allows them to “breathe” in and store carbon dioxide at night, when water loss is lower, and then process and photosynthesize during the day. Rather than brute-forcing it, they have optimized their metabolism to work with acknowledgement of the natural cycles and limitations of their environment; timing is everything here.
Across the plant kingdom, plants have evolved a set of robust pathways for balancing the need for growth (to compete and thrive) and stress response (to survive numerous and sometimes unpredictable challenges). Knowing when to push and reach for the sky and when to hunker down is a skill that is built into their tissues.
Cultivating Stress Tolerance
What do these lessons from plants hold for us? Well, humans possess innate stress responses and the ability for growth just the same as our plant relatives. Finding growth in challenge and building stress tolerance is very much what we do when we workout. Through physical challenge, our bodies do not just recover, but grow back stronger and more capable. This “anti-fragility” in the face of challenge is true for our mental challenges as well.
Just as athletes need recovery time to avoid injury, students need adequate rest and downtime to prevent burnout. This is particularly crucial for marginalized communities who may face disproportionate levels of chronic stress. Finding the balance between growth and stress tolerance is an ever present challenge for us all, but one that pays dividends throughout the course of our lives.
Some key takeaways and resources for thinking about stress tolerance:
Knowing the difference between positive and negative stress is key, because we need some amount of challenge to grow.
Schools and academic settings can provide a supportive and structured environment for providing challenges and cultivating these skills. This is especially true for students experience additional challenges such as poverty or neurodivergence
Consistent routines and habits of mind foster a sense of stability and predictability, which can buffer against our subjective experience of stress. Remembering why we’re in it with a clear goal is a keystone in this process.
Building strategies to reduce anxiety about stressors in life is an empowering and life-long skill
Tutoring, particularly in study skills here at North Avenue Education, can equip students with strategies to manage academic stress and stay within their optimal zone of performance. By learning effective time management, organization, and study techniques, students can reduce unnecessary stress and improve their academic outcomes.
Closing Thoughts
A stress-free life is an unrealistic goal. Instead, we should strive for a meaningful life, which inevitably involves some level of stress. By cultivating stress tolerance, we can navigate life's challenges and pursue our goals with greater resilience and confidence. Clearing our calendars of all commitments and activities would be a recipe for a dull life, not a stress-free one.
We can, however, build skills in time-management that help us get the most out of each day without getting lost in the hustle. At the end of the day, life is a tapestry of both difficult and joyful experiences. By developing the skills to manage stress, we can not only survive the hard times but also fully appreciate and embrace the good ones.
