Being a teenager may implicate a lot of juggling. attempting to manage needs and demands at school, home and from friends may seem stressful-even overpowering at times.

To assist teens handle stress and remain concentered, parents will have to give hope or courage to their teens to budget their time, eat and sleep well, practice, and ask for assist when they need it.

The recent winners of the young epidemiology scholars (yes) contest, sponsored by the robert wood johnson foundation and the college board, explored both real and positive and negative ways of responding to stress. Natalia nazarewicz of oak ridge, tenn. , and aman prasad of pocatello, idaho, conducted the two studies.

Nazarewicz surveyed more than 1,000 high school students in the oak ridge area on the exercise of deliberate self-injure, such as cutting or burning their skin. She found that 26 percent of the students reported they had purposely harm themselves at least once. The survey showed the selfharm was many times a response to stress and that twice as numerous girls as boys had resorted to such activities.

"i talked with numerous high-school guidance counselors and student mentors after completing my study and they were shocked by the latitude and scope of the problem," said nazarewicz.

For his project, prasad conducted a survey that he said proposes that physical energy and action can assist teens mitigate the negative effects of minor mood disorders. He surveyed 800 ninth and tenthgrade students from three schools regarding how much physical energy and action they engaged in every week and sustained and measured the students' mood by asking every individual to evaluate how optimistic and how offensive and aggressive he or she felt.

On intermediate, he found that students who exercised at a rate of three or more days a week reported being in a better mood than students who did not practice.