The Queue We Don't See: Why Pressure in the Classroom Becomes a Health Problem for All of Us

The school year has a rhythm everyone knows: periods of calm interrupted by peaks of tests, assignments and exams. For many adults this is a nostalgic backdrop. For an increasing number of young people it is a strain that settles in the body — as sleeplessness, restlessness, stomach aches, tears in the bathroom and a feeling of never being "done." We talk a lot about healthcare queues, the GP crisis and waiting times. But the most important queue — the one that determines whether health services will buckle in five or ten years — starts long before hospitals and district psychiatric centers (DPS). It starts in the classroom, in the schoolyard and in the feed. And yes: it is tempting to turn this into a debate about "today's youth." That they can't tolerate as much. That there has always been exam stress. But that explanation is not only lazy — it's dangerous. It pushes us to target symptoms (more sessions with a psychologist once things have already gone wrong) rather than daring to change the causes: a school day and a digital public sphere that, at times, function as a stress machine. In an op-ed in Dagens Næringsliv, Mari Rege argues that the key to fewer healthcare queues is that fewer people need help in the first place. Her point is not that treatment is unimportant, but that prevention must gain more status — even if it doesn't always yield quick political wins. That perspective should be a wake-up call for the entire education and health sector: we cannot "treat our way out" of a wave of **anxiety among young people** and rising signs of **youth depression**. We must reduce the pressure before it becomes diagnoses and long treatment courses. ## When performance becomes identity School is meant to be a place where you learn. Still, many young people experience school first and foremost as a place where you must prove your worth. This is a shift that happens almost imperceptibly: grades stop being a tool for development and become a measure of who you are. When tests and exams approach, stress moves into everyday life as a permanent background noise. What makes school and exam stress especially demanding is that it often comes together with three other burdens: 1. **Social comparison** (both in the classroom and across digital channels) 2. **Pressure from home** (explicit or subtle) 3. **Fear of being left out** (of the friend group, of study plans, of the "dream") This is where we must be honest: many young people encounter a system that on one hand says "you are more than your grades," but on the other sorts them with a level of detail never seen before. For some it becomes impossible to separate effort from self-worth. The result is not just stress. It becomes a mental logic where everything is at stake, every week. When pressure becomes prolonged, it also becomes harder to distinguish normal nervousness from more serious disorders. Anxiety can begin as a concrete worry ("what if I fail?") and develop into a generalized unease ("what if I'm not good enough?"). And that unease does not only accompany exam periods — it follows into the health services. ## We build capacity — but ignore the inflow The debate about mental health often ends in a capacity calculation: more psychologists, shorter wait times, better care pathways. All of this is important. But it's like widening the highway without asking why traffic is increasing. Mari Rege points out in DN that preventive measures are crucial for the future healthcare system precisely because mental health problems are among the most costly to society over time. She essentially writes what many professionals have said for years, but which rarely gains political weight: fewer people in healthcare queues is also about reducing the inflow. A short quote from the op-ed captures the logic well: "Preventive health measures may not yield quick political wins, but they are crucial for the future healthcare system." (Mari Rege, DN). Applied to youth and mental health this means: we need more low-threshold services — but we need even more that fewer become ill from the way we organize school days, assess performance and allow digital bullying to grow in blind spots. ## The school health service: the most underestimated preparedness If we are serious about prevention, **school health service mental health** is a natural starting point. Not because the school health service should "take over" specialist care, but because it is close, accessible and can catch early signs. The problem is that the school health service is often talked about as an add-on, not as part of the school's core mission. It becomes something you "have" — but not something you build school culture around. In practice this means school nurses can become fire-fighters, not preventers. What would happen if we treated the school health service as part of the learning environment on par with curricula and attendance rules? - Regular drop-in hours with clear predictability, not just "when it suits" - Systematic class discussions about stress management before exam periods - Early follow-up of sleep problems and school avoidance - Close cooperation between homeroom teachers, school nurses and parents — without everything having to go through concern reports and crisis meetings Prevention is not about medicalizing youth. It is about normalizing that mental strains are part of life — and at the same time taking seriously that some strains are too big to handle alone. ## Digital bullying: Campaigns help — but culture beats posters Campaigns against digital bullying are important. They can provide language, awareness and clear norms. But campaigns have an inherent weakness: they are temporary, while platforms are permanent. Young people live in a social world that never closes. It's not like before, when you could go home and get a break from the schoolyard. Now a comment, a snap or an exclusion from a group chat can linger as a continuous reminder that you're on the outside. The link to **social media and mental health** is more complicated than "screen time is dangerous." For many, social media is also community, humor, identity and support. But the same mechanisms that create belonging can also create brutal ranking: - Visible counts (likes, views, followers) - Constant comparison with others' highlights - Spread dynamics that turn a small incident into a big rumor - Low threshold for meanness when you don't have to see the reaction Campaigns that simply say "be kind" are not enough. We must build digital norms into school life — as skills, not moralizing lectures. That means digital judgment must be given status as core competence. And it means schools must dare to enforce rules even when the violation happens after school hours but its effects hit the classroom the next morning. ## School and exam stress: What we call "motivation" can be fear One of the most misleading ideas in the school debate is that pressure is always good because it "motivates." A little pressure can sharpen. But when pressure is constant, motivation turns into fear. And fear is a poor learning strategy. During exam periods we often see the same spiral: 1. High ambitions or external expectations 2. Increased working hours, less sleep 3. Bodily stress response (restlessness, heart palpitations, nausea) 4. Cognitive decline (drops in concentration and memory) 5. Experience of failure, more need for control This is an engine for **anxiety among young people**. It can start with school and end up as a more general pattern: overperforming to feel safe. If we are serious about reducing **youth depression**, we must also talk about how prolonged stress drains young people of energy. Depression in youth often isn't about "sadness" in the classical sense, but about emptiness, irritability, numbness, withdrawal and loss of meaning. When everything becomes performance, nothing is enjoyable. ## What we should do differently — and who must bear the cost Prevention is not free. It costs time, money and political will. But the alternative is more expensive: more young people in treatment pathways, more dropouts, more adults with long-term problems that could have been mitigated early. Here are five concrete measures that should guide policy, not just be "good intentions": ### 1) Make the school health service a core function It should be as obvious that a school has robust school nurse coverage as that it has teachers in language and math. If prevention is the key to fewer healthcare queues, we must invest where young people actually are. ### 2) Move some assessment pressure away from the peaks Exams and major tests will always cause stress. But schools can reduce harm by: - coordinating major assessments across subjects - increasing the share of assessment for learning - providing predictable periods without large submissions The point is not to lower standards. The point is to make demands humanly manageable. ### 3) Teach stress competence as a skill Handling pressure is not just personality. It is a set of skills: sleep, planning, breaks, realistic goals, breathing and regulation techniques, and knowing when to ask for help. This should be built into the school year — especially ahead of exam periods. ### 4) Treat digital bullying as seriously as physical bullying Schools cannot shirk responsibility because a violation happened in an app. If the consequences follow into the school day, it's the school's problem. Campaigns are fine, but they must be linked to: - clear consequences - safe reporting channels - parental cooperation - training in digital conflict resolution ### 5) Give parents a new "performance language" Many parents mean well but end up reinforcing stress: questions about grades, comparison, "you just have to pull yourself together now." We need a culture where parents more often ask: - How are you sleeping? - What is hardest right now? - What is one thing we can do to ease the pressure this week? This is not lower ambition. It is smarter support. ## The unpopular truth: Prevention requires changing things we like It's easy to cheer for "youth mental health" in speeches. It's harder to change the structures that give us short-term gains: - Schools measured by results and ranking - An education path that rewards perfection - A digital economy that profits from attention, comparison and conflict We must dare to say this is not just an individual problem. When many young people feel the same kind of unease, it's a signal from the system. And here we meet the core of Rege's point in DN: if we only discuss healthcare queues as a logistics problem, we overlook that the queue is filled by lives that become too heavy to carry alone. Investing in prevention is not "soft politics." It is hard realism. ## A society that can bear youth Adolescence has always been vulnerable. But it has not always been so surveilled, measured and compared. When we ask young people to perform more, be more resilient, be more productive — while they must navigate a digital social world that never sleeps — we shouldn't be surprised that more feel anxiety and depressive symptoms. The question is not whether we can afford prevention. The question is whether we can afford not to. Making school an arena that builds psychological resilience is not about "softening" demands. It's about taking learning seriously: no one learns well in constant alarm. And no healthcare queue gets shorter by waiting to help until everything is acute. If we want more young people to get through school and adolescence with health, curiosity and hope intact, we must move the effort forward in time. It's not only a health policy necessity. It's a moral obligation. ## Sources - Mari Rege, "Færre i helsekø starter med færre som trenger hjelp", Dagens Næringsliv, 2025-08-03