I will take my oath of office today and have the honor of representing Silicon Valley in the U.S. House of Representatives. My political campaign succeeded because of the help of hundreds of students. Their ambition and drive will allow them to flourish, but I am concerned about their well-being.

These students were volunteering because of a genuine passion for giving back to the community. But a few also told me that the campaign work was a release, or as one student put it “a respite from our reality.” And while these young adults may not have used terms like anxiety and depression, I gradually got the sense that their “reality” was sometimes darker than their smiles would suggest.

In the most recent California Healthy Kids Survey, 1 in 3 high school juniors reported feeling chronically sad. An astonishing 1 in 5 freshmen and juniors reported contemplating suicide. The causes of student distress vary, but 1 in 3 teens told the American Psychological Association that stress was a primary driver, and the single biggest cause teens named was school.

A large study commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente confirms that children who experience more serious and lasting stress in their youth are more likely to suffer not only anxiety and depression, but also lung, liver and heart disease as adults. While that research examined severe traumas such as abuse or neglect, psychologists and pediatricians increasingly suspect that chronic, lower-intensity stress, like that caused by constant performance pressure, could cause similar biological strain.

It has become clear that we need to do something. Vicki Abeles and Tarun Galagali have helped me put together a five-point plan:

Collect data annually on student wellness: We need to know precisely what we’re dealing with at each school. Stuart Slavin, a St. Louis University pediatrics professor, pioneered such a survey at Fremont’s Irvington High School, asking students research-backed questions on sleep, stress, anxiety and depression. The results helped guide Irvington administrators in crafting wellness programs. Data makes inaction a costly political decision for officials responsible to constituents.

Create wellness centers: Every school should have a wellness center on site, providing counseling and other services that will help equip students with tools to cultivate good mental health, such as mindfulness. Southern California’s Burbank High School is a guiding example.

Shift school start times to 8:30 a.m.: Sleep matters, especially for children and teens. Yet more than two-thirds of our country’s students get fewer hours than they need. Sleep deprivation is linked with a weaker immune system and higher levels of depression and suicide (not to mention poorer academic performance). Pushing school start times from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., as the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends, might be logistically challenging but sensible.

Remake expectations about homework: Homework seems like a given — a central and unquestioned part of a rigorous education. But in truth it is a reflex, borne out of tradition rather than research. Studies suggest that, if homework helps at all, it does so only when assigned in moderation. Today’s runaway homework demands are doing more harm than good. Schools should cap the amount of time students can be required to work after the last bell, granting them the chance for rest and exercise, and returning to families the evening hours that are rightfully theirs.

Defuse the college admissions arms race: There’s little that drives students to experience more stress than the ever-escalating contest to cram their college applications full of more advanced classes and activities than the next applicant. Yet it’s a contest that has little to do with real individual potential or learning. Schools at all levels have a responsibility to intervene. We call on public colleges and universities to cap the number of Advanced Placement classes and activities they will consider on applications.

With the same fervor that we demand our candidates value Medicare and Social Security, we need to ask our public officials to tackle the mental health epidemic afflicting our nation’s children. It is an urgent task.

Ro Khanna is the U.S. representative-elect of California’s 17th Congressional District. He wrote this commentary with Vicki Abeles, the producer/director of the film “Race to Nowhere” and author of “Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheuled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation” (Simon & Schuster, 2015), and Tarun Galagali, an alumnus of Monta Vista High School in Cupertino.