Pandemic takes toll on students’ mental health
In a recent report, the U.S. surgeon general explains that the effects of the new challenges young people are facing is having a negative outcome on their mental health.
Students’ mental health has been on the decline for many years, likely caused by an increase in academic pressure, social media use, and border stressors such as racism and climate change, the report said. Living through a pandemic has added another stressor for many students.
Out of 155 CVHS students, 47.1% of students claim their mental health has worsened, 30.3% claim it has stayed the same, and 22.6% say it has improved over the pandemic.
“It worsened my mental health because school became an overwhelming thing, where I now not only have to worry about my grades, but also whether or not I’m going to get COVID and bring it home. It also worsened my mental health because I can’t see as many friends and family like I used to,” wrote junior Mayumi Nomura.
Many students are unsure about what would help improve their mental health; some suggest less homework, getting more time with friends or going back online.
“If we could go back to distance learning, it would release the amount of stress me and many other students are having,” claimed junior Leah Balakrishnan. “We constantly fear about contracting covid, and spreading it to family members who have poorer health. This pandemic is getting worse, and to improve we really need to take it seriously.”
When asked about how CVHS is dealing with the decline in mental health, Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi said, “We’re very lucky because in our district we have 11 social workers, because we believe in supporting our students academically but also socially and emotionally.”
Ahmadi also mentioned that due to current legislation, it is not possible to go back to distance learning, but CVUSD does have social workers and the Wellness Center to help support students who are struggling.
The article is thoughtful and contains a lot of statistics and information about mental health. I like this article as I could relate to it in a lot of ways. In my opinion, I think the pandemic made my mental health worsen as I became more lazy throughout the year and I wasn’t completing most of my assignments online. Often times I procrastinated as more assignments were posted and made me care less about my grades. There were a lot of distractions while at home such as my phone and my environment. It was hard to concentrate on the work as there were constant distractions while in quarantine which made hard to get most of anything done. The phone was the most major distraction as I was always on it every minute and gave me lots of anxiety especially from all the social media. My cell phone usage has increased at an alarming rate. It was really hard to take time off the phone since I was used to always being on it.
Being in lockdown made me realize just how much simply seeing people or engaging in small interactions with different people every day is rewarding. Even as someone who isn’t a very outgoing person, I felt that a lot of people were impacted one way or another. As the mental health of students already seemed very concerning, both the lack of motivation during the lockdown and the Covid-related anxieties of being in person are both very real. Everyone is different and has a different opinion on what is best, but the fact that mental health in students is significant is very clear.
I agree with this article and how after returning to school mental health has been high and low. With the amounts of stress from homework and grades. There isn’t much time to take a break and hang out with friends like you used to. Also there is the stress about contracting covid and needing to catch up on classwork and other topics that you missed.
This pandemic has certainly been hard for many of us. Almost half of the respondees reporting worsened mental health is heavily concerning, but thankfully we are not going back into a seemingly infinite lockdown. Mental health is a serious issue that is little understood when compared to many things, and it’s important that we take care of it as much as we can. A large factor of mental health declining may also be due to student’s brain chemistry changing. For many, the change needed to improve is unknown.
The pandemic and lockdown had definitely taken a toll on most of our mental health. However, I think it’s not a bad idea to go back to normal life with the appropriate measures such as wearing masks and social distancing as we can not always stay locked up. I think Covid is here to stay probably for the rest of our lives and we will just have to adapt to it. Distance learning and staying at home is only a temporary solution but it will not help much if our daily life will dependent on going outside.
I agree that the pandemic has affected our mental health. School has just so grinding all the time and there hasn’t really been a break. It’s scary thinking you can go to school and get covid just because you ate lunch with someone. Having tests almost every week is just exhausting. Being isolated during covid did not help with social skills. We missed out on a bunch of things and we still have to be very cautious.
The pandemic has taken an extreme role in students’ mental health. I think it has to be due to the fact our whole lives changed, our routines were altered and life as we know it was completely different from what we were used to, we weren’t used to this kind of change. Being on lockdown for me was a bit beneficial but also draining on my mental health. Since I attended CVVA for the lockdown, I was able to “attend” school at whatever time I pleased as long as I did the work and checked in. I didn’t have zoom calls, and I didn’t really feel all that pressure that my friends would feel in online CVHS. But I did lose a lot of motivation, I felt lazy and tired all the time, and going back to school made me feel so anxious but I was also glad to go back to my normal routine. I’m very lucky my classes don’t give me much homework, because I believe homework plays a big factor in our school lives. I have more time to focus on myself and my health.
Mental health is a major part of life, if your mental health is low then everything else in your life is going to be very low
I would say that during this pandemic my mental health was worsened. I had no motivation, I couldn’t see any of my friends, and I am constantly worried about catching covid. Being isolated during the lockdown was really damaging and I’m not at all surprised a lot of others felt this way too.
If we went back to virtual learning the lack of socializing would ruin me. I cant deal with that again. I’m having a good time talking to people every day.
I think that they had NO RIGHT to put us in an indefinite lockdown, without giving us the chance to get contact information and say farewell to our friends. I think that they should have stuck to a definite lockdown of 2-3 weeks and NOT close school for the rest of the school year, and they should have also imposed MASK MANDATES before doing lockdown, because it’s been scientifically proven that even if we just had AT LEAST >80% of people WEAR THEIR MASK (Preferably we would have 100% of people follow the COVID laws), then we could have AVOIDED A LOCKDOWN ALTOGETHER, and then we could have avoided a heavy toll on everyone’s health if we had been able to avoid lockdown.