A research paper, lab report, calculus test and Spanish project all due in a matter of days is enough to make any person feel over the edge, let alone a high school student at CHS who also has to factor in time for clubs, sports, work and home life.

For better or worse, stress has begun to play a large role in the lives of many teens at CHS.

For some students, like senior Matt Miller of Wall, this stress has roots in an overabundance of commitments.

“I’m always stressed, mostly due to school work. But it also doesn’t help that I play sports, since that takes up any free time in my day,” Miller said.

Senior Mark Dispigna of Lincroft agreed with Miller. In order to reduce his level of stress, he prioritizes his tasks.

“I make a list of all my priorities. Sometimes it’s clubs over school work, or vise versa. I do what is important first and work my way down the list,” Dispigna said.

Senior Grace Badger of Neptune also emphasized the importance of prioritizing, although she pointed out how the technique is not always easy to maintain.

“If someone is extremely stressed, that may make it hard to for them to prioritize,” Badger said.

Not all stress is eliminated by using techniques like prioritizing, and in many cases, it creates a negative impact on the physical health of the student.

According to a study conducted by the American Psychological Association, nearly 1 in 5 teens say that when they do not get enough sleep, they are more stressed and 36 percent of teens report feeling tired because of stress in the past month.

School nurse Dot Condon has seen this occur at CHS.

“In a highly stressed school, I tend to find that the stressed students get run down easily and their immune system gets compromised because they are not eating and sleeping enough,” Condon said.

DiSpigna experienced a similar episode last year when he suffered from kidney stones. In his case, the doctor said his condition could have been a direct result from stress.

“I realize now that you have to consider your health when you’re stressing out about things and make sure that you are taking enough time to relax,” DiSpigna said.