I recently read an article that mentioned the fact that “the average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.”

Part of me wants to agree with this. Sometimes everything we have going on makes us feel totally overwhelmed and near snapping at any time. I know that pretty much all seniors have recently felt this way about senior papers.

Another part of me sees that there really is no specific evidence to back this statement up. I don’t think the things that make high school students anxious now are comparable to the things that made psychiatric patients in the 50s anxious. And how does one measure a person’s anxiety? By the amount of hair falling out? By how short their nails are bitten? Everyone’s anxiety is caused by different reasons, sometimes by no reason at all.

While I don’t think this fact can actually be proven true, it did get me thinking. If it is true, what does that say about the kind of pressure we’re under now? I also would think that average students in the 50s had it easy if someone with the amount of stress I have might be admitted into a psychiatric hospital. Either way, stay calm everyone, only 5 weeks until winter break.