Amruta Sawant | 
Ever get panic stricken at the very prospect of having to take an exam the next day? Does the irrational fear of being not able to write anything even when you have studied well enough, not let you have a good night’s sleep?
Well, as a matter of relief, you are not the only one to feel that way. All of us, at some point in their academic life have unmistakably been in this spot.Exam Pressure is very common amongst students, expecially teenagers.
Ideally, you get stressed when you feel emotionally or mentally strained. It might not sound nearly as bad as physical stress, which gets inflicted on your body when you have a bad accident or when you happen to have a rather bad injury. On a deeper inspection, however, it does have its bearing on you, without you even initially realising the impact of it on your mental wellbeing.
I’m not even slightly implying that you’d rather have your jaw broken and that you’d rather cry out in physical stress than have butterflies in your stomach before exams arrive. The perks of being stressed do include a better performance and increased response time, however, when it jumps beyond a certain limit, it starts to take a toll.
Imagine you’re skiing in the Himalayas, momentarily admiring the beautiful peaks and then suddenly you happen to see some tiny snowball forming on the snow line, and then it starts rolling down the slope. It’s harmless yes, but it goes on gaining weight as it rolls towards the base until it finally hits you and you then find yourself helpless underneath a heap of snow. That is how exam stress snowballs itself into a meltdown.
It is obviously as important to have stress to a certain degree, since it is nothing but our response to the pressure that we face, as it is to experience it without overshooting the limit. It’s not possible to escape exams. You know you’ll have to face them; you also have a rough clue when they will arrive. The idea is to embrace the fact that they will always be just around the corner and bring to prepare yourself slowly and steadily to stand toe to toe with them.
A few signs of exam stress include:
• Getting easily irritated
• Difficulty falling asleep or oversleeping
• Difficulty concentrating
• Loss of appetite or overeating
• Reduced social interaction
• Nervous or emotional breakdowns
• Feeling of being inadequate
What ultimately leads to/causes exam anxiety:
Procrastination:
We all postpone our work. Simply said, we put studying off thinking we’ll always find the time to complete that chapter later but when the day of completing it arrives, we’re overcome with a sense of helplessness. This elevates our stress levels, increases exam tension and culminates into a breakdown during or just before exams.
Unhealthy eating habits:
The consumption of processed fast food beyond a certain limit has been shown to influence stress levels of students. We often resort to comfort eating and prefer to eat fast food on the go while our body remains deficient in all those nutrients that fresh, home cooked food is packed with. While we spend a great deal of our time studying, we pay little attention to what our body is going through. Since studying involves a lot of being seated most of the times, we often don’t realise the seriousness of movement and how we should balance it with an appropriate amount of exercise. A combination of poor diet and exercise in the long term causes problems like obesity and depression.
Competition:
We often see the ones around us and inevitably compare ourselves to them. It often happens that while we score good marks, someone else manages to top the class and it sets us to think about what is it that we did, to not have managed to grab the first place. While comparing ourselves for becoming the best version of ourselves can be regarded as a healthy practice, unnecessarily being a harsh critique of oneself cannot be the way. It causes us to become stressed and we almost are never satiated with ourselves and the entire concept of exams just becomes a rat race, all while taking a toll on our mental health.
Fear of failure:
Let us be honest; we all fear failing. We all fear to be left behind while everyone else is passing their exams with flying colours. Even if that’s not the case, some of us truly never fail but are motivated to study only because of the presence of our phobia of failing. It’s stressful to fail, yes, but it’s even more stressful to live with the fear of failing; something that hasn’t even happened and yet is dwindling our peace of mind, a factor without which it is impossible to study well.
Lack of sleep:
We often take sleep for granted and end up staying up all night, either because we’re engaged in some leisurely activities or are traveling unavoidably. While it may look like it’s not going to affect us, we end up with reduced productivity when studying or literally any sort of work. This affects our concentration, something whose reserves we’re in a great need of while studying, especially during exams. It can greatly cause us to get irritated and stressed.
What we must do to beat exam stress/ some tips to overcome it:
Make a timetable:
If you maintain a planner or a timetable that keeps a check on how your studying and academic schedule mingles with the rest of your activities even beyond school/college, it proves to be of great help since you allocate time to every activity in a very organised manner. You can dedicate a few hours to studying and a few hours to engage in recreational activities.
If you keep the ratio of the number of hours you dedicate to either constant, it's okay if you don’t stick to a specific timing. Do it flexibly.This will reduce your exam pressure to a great extent. When you plan well, study bit by bit right from day one and keep track of your progress, there is no stopping you from attaining sense of harmony, which sooner or later will reflect in your exam’s results.
Eat healthy:
There’s no substituting freshly made homemade food. Especially during exams, we must eat carefully and monitor when we feel hungry and when we aren’t. Starving oneself during exam preparation is not an option. Meat, eggs, nuts, seeds and dry fruits are a great source of protein. Green vegetables and fruits provide you with all the necessary vitamins and water keeps you hydrated.
If you have a meal that consists of a pizza, some fried chips and a rather sugary drink, it’s fine to consume it once a week, given you’re in the physical state to. However, it becomes a problem and later a cause of stress after it becomes an everyday habit. Our body is a temple, we must consider what goes in.
Stay fit:
You can take a few breaks from your studying schedule and take a few rounds of your bicycle (if you have one). If you don’t, you can leave your study station for a while and take a few rounds of the place you’re at. As for the time you’re not having any exams, playing running games or simply taking a stroll every day for half an hour helps too.
Regular physical exercise releases chemicals called endorphins in your blood stream. They’re known to keep stress at bay and ward anxious thoughts off. Also, when we get a minimum 7 hours of sleep, we can function well.
Overcome fear of failure:
There’s no point in studying out of fear. You must not be scared by something that is not going to define who you are as a person or will be a parameter of your capabilities in your life. You must understand the fact that when you’ve studied to the best of your capacity, there’s not going to be any obstacle standing in the way of your success. It is even more wonderful when parents stand by us, in times of such stress. It of course is important that you succeed and do well in your exams, but it is more important that you do it with you being in the pink of your both physical and mental health.
There may be times when the exam anxiety can cause you to feel overwhelmed. During times like these, do not hesitate in asking for help from your teachers or your parents or your friends. Since the concept of exams is an important chunk of one’s academic life, one cannot escape it. Busting exam stress is within the realm of possibilities. The best way to brave exam anxiety is to first understand that it doesn’t happen in a day, but is ultimately a fruition of a combination of efforts like personally organising oneself, taking one step at a time in learning and then practicing, balancing your academics with recreational activities and lastly, freshening yourself up and in the process. This will surely have you stand face to face with the exam phobia and it would be only a matter of time before you’ve conquered it.
(Also Read: 6 Last minute tips for the day of the Exam. )