Are straight A's really worth it?: Academic Stress and Self Worth as a Teen

Hello beautiful! I hope you all are excited for this blog post, because I know I am! Today's topic is academic stress and validation. Especially because I go to a private school, my family and peers have always been very focused on getting good grades and making good impressions on teachers. The main issue with this is that whenever I get overly obsessed with my grades, I bet my entire self worth on them. So the second one of my grades dropped, I would feel like I was worth nothing.

I've gotten a lot kinder in the way that I talk to myself since even just a few months ago, but I know that this is still an important issue for so many students. I want to take a second before you read the rest of this post to let you know that I'm not encouraging any of you to give up on school at all. In my opinion, education is so powerful, and it is so important to try your best in school, whatever that may mean for you. This post is just to remind you that your dedication to school shouldn't be very harmful for your health.

Me doing practice problems before my math test :)

Short Term vs. Long Term Stress

Short term stress from school is completely normal. For example, in this photo, I'm studying for my math test, and I'm pretty stressed, to say the least. But, once the test was over, I felt a lot better, and after a few days, I forgot about the whole thing.

The more dangerous type of school stress is long term. If you always feel stressed about school in general, not just a specific test or assignment, that could be a sign that you need to step back or take a break.

Importance of Mental Health

If you feel like you experience a lot more long term school stress and you think it might be impacting your mental health, it might be a good idea to step back a little bit. This section of this post can basically be your reminder that your mental health is worth a lot more than numbers on a report card. This applies no matter what your grades are.

I think there's this widespread misconception that people with good grades are the only students who are stressed about school. It doesn't matter whether you're a straight A student or a straight D student; you deserve a break whenever you need one.

Importance of REST

While mental health is a bit similar to this, it is so much better for the brain (and body)to take breaks from school work. Academic burnout is not a joke, and working too much and too hard is one of the fastest ways to get there.

What a lot of people don't realize about taking breaks and relaxing is that it will probably improve your performance in school. For me, when I stress myself out about assignments and push myself beyond my mental limit while studying, I do get pretty good scores. But, they're usually not as good as the scores that I get when I study an amount that seems reasonable and when I get good sleep.

Speaking of sleep, I think it is way too normalized in high schools to pull all nighters studying for tests and quizzes. I'm not here to judge anyone, and I'm definitely guilty of staying up too late to study. But, there is literally scientific evidence out there (nerdy, I know) saying that when students don't sleep before a test they perform worse. That's not to scare you, but it's just to put into context how hard an all-nighter is for your body and your brain.

Sleeping is also crucial to your life in general, not just your grades, and I will always advocate for its importance, especially among students.

Image from @kayak on Pinterest

Self-Worth ≠ Grades!!

Because of our intense dedication to school, we might tie our entire self-worth to our grades. I've experienced this, and it is honestly such a dangerous way of thinking. First of all, there are so many more amazing things about yourself to appreciate other than the numbers that we get on our report cards at the end of the semester. Focusing entirely on your grades could eventually lead to you losing all of those amazing things that make you so special.

I don't want to sound too negative, but I feel like I have so say this, just because of how true it is. If we obsess over our grades during middle and high school, we might forget about most of the other skills we will need as adults: communicating, decision-making and managing conflict. Grades don't even represent most of the qualities of a well rounded person. It's important to give yourself grace with academics, because even though you might not be the best at math, you could be very emotionally intelligent or artistically creative.

One of my teachers this year is also very passionate about this. Whenever she gives us an assignment and notices us looking nervous, she always reminds us that stressing about school work is not worth our time. Even though I'm writing against extensive school stress, I feel like I definitely need that reminder sometimes. If you don't have a teacher that does something similar, here's something you can do if you want to keep your self-worth and grades separate.

I know how corny I sound right now, but I would absolutely recommend using affirmations, but with a little twist. First of all, the affirmations should be about a personal trait (that has nothing to do with school) that you love about yourself. The twist is that with each affirmation, there's a piece of proof as well. In my last post about imposter syndrome, I mentioned a proof board. This is a similar concept, just a little more compact.

Here's an example of an affirmation+proof pairing:

Affirmation: I am thoughtful, and I think to help my friends and family before myself.

Proof: Last week, I made dinner for my sister because she had a bad day, even though I had a lot of homework to do.

This is just a recommendation, so if you think it won't work for you, that's totally fine! I just want to encourage you to find a way to appreciate all the parts of you, not just your academic performance.

Thank you so much for reading my blog! Remember, if you ever feel like you need a hand, girl, let me help!