The Importance Of Stress And Academic Performance

Stress and its nature Stress is often described as a feeling of being overloaded, wound up tight, tense and worried (Australian Psychological Society, 2012). It can be short-lived, and can actually help motivate individuals from time to time to be able to finish a task and perform well. Stress can also be harmful if an individual becomes over-stressed and it interferes on how a person functions normally over a period of time (APS, 2012).

Stress arises under different circumstances, for instance when one is pressured by the demands that they are given or to certain threats to their current well being and the individual cannot cope well with the situation present, stress usually occurs (Lazarus, R.S., 1966). Thus, we can define stress as the

& Cole, B., 1988). Since then, researchers from different fields have challenged theirselves to decipher and learn more about stress. For psychologists, they try to understand the influence of stress to various body response, cognitive abilities, and psychological perceptions. Previous research studies show that one of the fields where stress has consistent influence is on school setting. It is no wonder then that many studies conducted were dedicated on finding the impact of stress to the academic performance of students. Studies show that one of the factors that hinder students in performing well in their academics are because of the stressors they encounter day by day (Akgun, S., & Ciarrochi, J., 2003). According to the work of Radifah (2009), learning and memory can be affected by stress. Although normal amount of stress can enhance one’s learning ability, too much can be harmful to one’s mental health. Stress can also surpress learning, which is considered as ‘unfavorable stress’ and can harm a person’s academic performance (Siraj, 2014). ‘Favorable stress’ is the concept in which students learn how to manage