Japanese Slang : テンションが高い

Whoah,,,, excitement at its best. I wish I had such awesome hair. Lol

Alright guys, 

When you visit Japan and start getting immersed in the language and people, slang starts to creep up to you. It may be a very subtle thing, or something that's worth taking note of. 

I'm sure there's slang for every generation and it has its own contexts. 

Sometimes there's slang that's pretty common for almost all generations. 

One type of slang that's pretty much used and heard almost everyday is テンションが高い

今日はテンションが高いぞー！！！

I'm pretty pumped up today!!!         It can mean 'excited' 'pumped up' ' having an adrenaline rush' 

Perhaps a good image to have is the feeling of doing a bungee jump, or when you hit the groove with your favorite music/beats. 

There is of course, the opposite テンションが低い　which is used when you're feeling low, low-energy and lacking excitement. 

どうしたの、なんかテンションが低そうだね。

What happened? You look listless. 

The very cool and interesting aspect about this slang is that it contains a カタカナ　which would be テンション

Now, if you're a native English speaker, you may be like " What !!? What's that got to do with anything? " 

テンション　＝　Tension 

Yes, it doesn't really add up when you translate this into English. 

Now, everyone may have their explanations but I have mine. 

When you stretch something elastic, that creates tension. Let's do some physics. Tension is created when a matter tries to go back to it's original shape after it's been moved out of position. 

So, tension creates energy = creates excitement 

Maybe that's the reason テンション is used. 

So, now that you know what it means there's no need to worry when a Japanese-native uses such slang. Observe and listen carefully for the various situations that this slang can be used for.