Exam Stress

Everyone gets anxious during exams, some more than others. On this page you will find tips on how to beat the stress of exams and overcome the fear of exams

First, believe in yourself. You wouldn’t have been given a place in the school / course if you didn’t have the ability to do it. Therefore, if you prepare for the exams properly you should do fine, meaning that there is no need to worry excessively.

Don’t try to be perfect. It’s great to succeed and reach for the stars. But keep things in balance. If you think that “anything less than winning means I’ve failed” then you are creating mountains of unnecessary stress for yourself. Aim to do your best but recognize that none of us can be perfect all of the time.

Take steps to overcome problems. If you find you don’t understand some of your course material, getting stressed out won’t help. Instead, take action to address the problem directly by meeting your teacher or getting help from your classmates.

Don’t keep things bottled up. Confiding in someone you trust and who will be supportive is a great way of alleviating stress and worry. Remember, your parents are your best friends. They are the ones who will be with you and support you through thick or thin. But, if for some reason you cannot confide in your parents, find someone in whom you can, preferably an elder like a brother or sister, a cousin, an aunt or uncle, grandparents, or failing even this, a friend.

Keep things in perspective. The exams might seem like the most crucial thing right now, but in the grander scheme of your whole life they are only a small part.

Don’t drink too much coffee, tea and fizzy drinks; the caffeine will ‘hype’ you and make your thinking less clear. Eat healthily and regularly; your brain will benefit from the nutrients.

Regular moderate exercise will boost your energy, clear your mind and reduce any feelings of stress.

Try out some yoga, tai chi or relaxation techniques. They will help to keep you feeling calm and balanced, improve your concentration levels and help you to sleep better.

It is especially important to take care of yourself during periods of high stress. Here are some tips for keeping yourself healthy:

• eat balanced, regular meals;

• try to get at least six hours of sleep a night, and

• try to make time for exercise.

Eating balanced meals gives your body the stored energy it needs to draw upon in a stressful situation.

Some foods are simply more calming than others. Milk, for example, contains naturally occurring morphine-like substances, which help to calm you down. Mashed potato is a well-known “comfort food”, and so are bread and beans. Lettuces, and other raw vegetables, are also helpful when you’re trying to use your diet to help to keep your calm.

Some foods, on the other hand, just help to wind you up.

Exercise is a good way to work out your frustrations and gain a new perspective.

There are lots of ways that you can make your stress much worse than it needs to be, and at exam time, you need to make sure that you avoid them as much as possible.

Now let us look at foods that can make your stress worse mentally. Foods high in sugar and caffeine may provide a temporary lift, but will bring you down lower in the end. Sugar is the main culprit here. It may give an instant “energy hit”, but that’s at the cost of making you even more tense than you were before. In fact, just about any very sweet foods are going to increase your overall stress level if you eat them a lot. Try to stay away from using foods high in sugar and caffeine as study aids for prolonged periods of time. Chocolate, interestingly enough seems to be an exception. There is lots of speculation why, and one possibility is that the calming effect of the theobromine in the chocolate cancels out the effect of the sugar. Whatever the reason, if you absolutely must eat sweet things during your exam time, then try to keep to chocolate rather than directly sugary ones. Honey doesn’t seem to be too bad, either, as far as we know.

Caffeine is a very powerful drug, which acts directly on the central nervous system and heightens emotional arousal. But you’ve got enough emotional arousal just from worrying about the exams in any case, so it’s an extremely bad idea to fill your system up with a drug, which will exaggerate that! Try to drink less coffee in the period before and during exams – drink milk instead, if you can (see above), or tea at the very least.

Not eating, or fasting, stimulates a particularly active state in the body. It’s an old evolutionary survival mechanism, which has the purpose of encouraging you to go out and seek food, actively. In the process, though, you become more agitated, and less able to concentrate on other things. So it’s absolutely vital to eat regularly during exam times.