How to Beat Exam Stress

Avoiding anxious thoughts surrounding examinations is easier said than done, but the remedy lies in learning how to manage your mind. By combining physical well-being, cognitive techniques, and emotion regulation strategies, students can stay in control and optimise their performance potential.
By Dr Vandana V Prakash

 

“The journey of life comprises of minor examinations in the form of school/board examinations. These small examinations are but the stepping stones to help us face the highest examination i.e., LIFE”.

Words to these effects have been said to students for innumerable years. Despite knowing the wisdom hidden in these words, we tend to forget it at the most crucial time i.e., Examinations. We all feel nervous and anxious at this time and “examination” becomes a dreaded word. A little anxiety boosts us to study better, however, too much apprehension and nervousness prevents us from giving our best performance. In such cases anxiety actually reduces our performance.

Do you know that most artists, performers and high achievers also experience excessive anxiety before their performance? They report being physically sick, blanking out and having palpitations. But their success lies in channelising this nervous energy into a positive one by focusing purposefully on the task in hand. So the first thing that you need to understand is that tension and nervousness are a normal phenomenon. What is important is to reorient those negative energies into positive ones.
So, how do we know we have examination anxiety? These behaviours tell us that we have examination anxiety.
Excessive worry
Fear of being evaluated
Fear of the results
Feeling that things are going out of control
Feeling moody and irritable
Having irrational thoughts like “achievement means 100% marks”, “I am useless if I get less marks”, “my parents will not love me now” etc.
Physically feeling unwell like having headaches, stomach-ache, vomiting, nausea, dry mouth, frequent urination and increase in heart beat etc.
Lack of attention and concentration
Increase in day-dreaming particularly of succeeding and winning praise for good performance than actually studying
Difficulty in recalling learnt material due to high anxiety.
Socially withdrawing from friends, relatives and even family members.

Do these behaviours affect our performance?
Yes, these behaviours have a negative effect on how we perform during our examinations. These behaviours hinder us by
Inhibiting our thought processes or disorganising our thoughts.
Making us forget learnt or familiar material.
Sudden inability to understand previously well prepared topics.
Making us go blank for sometime resulting in poor recall.
Inability to understand simple questions.
Forgetting keywords, concepts, formulas etc.
Underperformance when self and other expectations were high.

Why do we tend to become anxious and then under perform in our examinations?
We are normally anxious when several basic things are not taken into account. Before and during the examination we pay little attention to our physical routine, number of study hours, attention to all subjects and our state of mind. These factors contribute to increase our anxiety levels.
Since these factors are easily identifiable, the first and foremost thing is to list out all the obstacles that are present and are actively hindering your learning process.

Start by rectifying your physical tensions.
This would include waking and sleeping the time you are habituated.
All night studying and day-time sleeping will not help during the examination days as reversed sleep cycle will keep you awake a day prior to your examination.
Eat normally but consume easily digestible food. Do not starve yourself as poor appetite will fatigue you faster.
If heavy meals make you drowsy have several small meals.
Ensure that you play or go for brisk walk for 30-60 minutes every day.
Do not have marathon sessions. After one and half hour take a break of five to ten minutes as brain also tires and needs to refresh. While relaxing do not have guilt feelings that “I have wasted my time”.
Do not get too comfortable; avoid easy chairs, beds, rocking chairs etc. Avoid any sleep-inducing places.
Avoid distractions like the telephone, television, radio, noisy places etc.

Secondly, how you divide the course content and which study methods you use would also influence your ability to reduce examination stress.
Make a timetable for each subject. See that the entire course content is covered.
Try to complete difficult subjects’ course first.
Study two different subjects every day. One difficult and one easy.
Do the difficult one when you are most fresh and alert.
Underline important points with a marker. Summate the content of the paragraphs into keywords. Write these keywords in the margin.
As soon as you have finished studying, close the book and try to recall the keywords. Count the number of keywords you have remembered and the ones you have forgotten. Go over the ones you were unable to recall.
Tyr to understand and learn. Do NOT use rote learning, i.e., learning by heart without understanding the subject content.
Before sleeping at night revise the content briefly in your mind.
Avoid cramming the course content a night before the examination. Be relaxed and sleep early so that you wake up fresh and alert. An alert mind will recall more than a tired and fuddled mind.

Thirdly, keep your mental make-up positive.
The more you fear the examination the more you will feel anxious. Do not make the examinations the “bogey man”.
Remember that your thoughts increase or decrease your level of anxiety. Thoughts like “I am surely going to fail”, “what if I do not get above 95% marks”, and “what if I do not get my career choice” etc only increase the anxiety levels. Instead use positive thoughts like “I will surely do well as I have never failed before”, “percentage does not matter but working hard matters,” etc.
Be in touch with persons who can give emotional support as well as intellectual support. We all need this human touch in trying times.
Learn to pat your back for doing well. Do not learn to be excessively critical of yourself. Once you have evaluated yourself just reassure yourself that you will put in more sincere effort and then proceed to do so.
Learn to compete with yourself and not others despite the comparisons made by your elders. Remember this example that if you are in a car someone will always be ahead of you, however fast you may be going and someone will always be behind you. Go at the speed that you can manage without causing an accident to yourself. Learn to enhance your own abilities instead of feeling jealous of the others.

Lastly, before entering the examination hall do not open your books for the last revision because actually no revision takes place but yes anxiety does increase. Do not ask or discuss anything with your friends and classmates as their confusions will add up to your confusions. Relax yourself by breathing deeply several times. Say a small prayer. Calmly read the paper and mark the questions you know well. Attempt them first and then those you know less well.
Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. ~Glenn Turner.

(The author is Senior Consultant, Department of Clinical Psychology, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Vaishali, Ghaziabad).