7 Tips to Beat Exam Anxiety

We’ve all been there. No matter how many notes you make and how prepared you think you are, there will be the familiar and inevitable butterflies in your tummy right before you’re faced with an exam paper. This is usually when your brain goes, “Sorry, buddy, you’re on your own and also I’m just going to erase everything you learned! Good luck.” Anxiety is a normal thing to have as your body releases adrenaline when your body encounters stress. This is the hormone that activates your fight or flight response. 

Just like all anxieties, exam anxieties too fall under a spectrum. Different people react to it in their own, unique way. Some people get headaches, others might feel nauseous and many others can feel their heart beat faster than normal. So here are some tips to assist you in defeating exam anxiety:

• Get a good night’s sleep:  You might think that staying up all night and cramming last minute notes will surely help. Unfortunately, this does more harm than good. Being well-rested will give you confidence and a clear head to face the exam. Pulling all-nighters would only put your already stressed brain under more duress.

• Follow a healthy diet:  Studies have shown that those who maintained a balanced diet up to a week before their respective exam performed better than those with a high-protein diet. It is a good idea to have a fiber and carbohydrate-rich diet so that energy is released slowly and your brain doesn’t give out mid-exam. 

                        energy  faster 🡪

                        Losing                                                                            focus 🡪

                        PANIC!

• Positive Self-imagery:  Pep yourself up with good and positive results. Making use of this method has been known to enhance confidence and a mind to conquer any challenge. But be sure to set realistic expectations of yourself and the things you can achieve.
• Go to your Happy Place:  To help you calm down, simply imagine a happy place that you can instantly go to, whatever or wherever that might be, and swiftly switch to imagining yourself in an exam room. This helps in making you think of taking an exam as a happy and positive thing instead of a scary nightmare.

• Boost confidence: Along with imagining a happy place, try visualizing the answers to the questions you already know so that your confidence levels will be up throughout the whole thing. 

• Familiarize yourself with the room: If the allotted room isn’t your classroom, try to take a look at it a few days before so that you are familiar with the battlefield. (We mean exam room). This will reduce the chances of you being late and getting lost by being unfamiliar with your surroundings adding on to your stress, your brain will, therefore, be at ease and comfortable in a familiar setting.

• Have a good support system: Your support system can be a group of study buddies and groups but people aren’t always dependable in such situations. There will always be a Debbie Downer or a Johnny Raincloud who brings down the positive vibe and confidence of the group.

Another support system can be writing down your anxieties about the exam on a piece of paper. If you put down your worries in writing, chances are that physical manifestation helps you acknowledge and deal with it better. Pair this with your arguments as to why such anxieties don’t affect your life as much as you think they do.

In conclusion, everybody has some amount of anxiety before any important exam. This is a completely normal feeling to have. What you can do, however, is rise to the challenge, follow the tips above that suit you, and face your fears with courage and resilience.

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