Some early evidence of this comes from addiction studies dealing with alcohol and tobacco abuse, which showed that addictions were passed down. More recently, scientists are discovering that the stress we experience functions in the same manner. Stress changes our genes to make us more predisposed to being stressed. Just as important, this stress tendency can be passed down to the next generation.

Second, stress accumulates without our knowing. The conditions that cause stress to pile atop one another in a person’s mind and the roles in which they receive this stress tend to overlap. As a consequence, stress spills over across these roles as we slip between them, carrying our accumulated stress everywhere we go.

We often snort at people breaking down over simple things as signs of weakness. But a woman who breaks down over a pot on the hob boiling over may have got there through a winding journey. She may have been scolded by clients in her job as a nurse, had conflicts with the day care centre looking after her children, whom she cares for at home while dealing with the looming realities of an ill, ageing parent and student debts to be paid off. Her tears were never just about the dinner. Moreover, in a culture like ours where mental health is stigmatised, just having a mental health problem is itself a source of stress.

Third, most crucially, stress is strongly linked to a host of mental and physical health problems. Psychologically, stress percolates into loss of confidence, identity, affection and sense of control. Through this, people may be led to believe they are alone, unwanted or unimportant, and incapable of overcoming difficulties or succeeding. Stress can then manifest as anxiety, anger and depression.

From patterns we can observe at the national level, we know stress can drive behavioural change. Most commonly, this includes escapist behaviour such as alcohol or substance abuse. For example, feelings of a strong sense of powerlessness and low mastery have been found to lead to heavier-drinking habits.

Other patterns may also include delinquency or deviance, when someone who is stressed seeks out social support from participation in deviant subcultures. As Chinese University’s “Tree Hole” campaign shows, students are in need of adequate mental health support, yet aren’t receiving it from the education system.

Fourth, for children in particular, early-life factors have a significant influence on health outcomes in later life. Children who grow up in environments with high stress and without the free, playful activity that allows for creativity end up adopting unhealthy, lifelong practices, like the tendency to get stressed.

They also become more predisposed at an earlier age to mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. In addition, their poor emotional, social and brain development makes them vulnerable to these same problems in adulthood. Thus, both directly and indirectly, our mechanistic and stressful education system is casting our children into a circuit of numerous mental health challenges.

Stress is a problem, with more far-reaching consequences than we think. It’s also a symptom of a system in urgent need of change. Our children groan in silence under the weight of our ignorance as we continue to ignore the signs of disaster painted in our education system. They deserve a better quality of life and a better future.

Anson Au is currently a visiting professor in the School of Humanities, Social Science, and Law at Harbin Institute of Technology and a PhD student in sociology at the University of Toronto