As modern-day stress ratchets up to what feels like unbearable levels, researchers are striving to learn more about the precise mechanisms through which it affects our body and mind. The hope is that by unlocking more about how stress works physiologically, we can find ways to prevent it from permanently harming people.
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Katie McLaughlin, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, is investigating how mental health problems arise in adolescents as they’re going through a particularly vulnerable time in their lives, transitioning to adulthood.
She and her colleagues are still collecting data, but a smaller, precursor study tracking 30 teenagers offers clues about what the researchers might learn—and how it might help them identify stress before it goes too far.