Jun 08, 2023
Tips to study during exams and dealing with stress.
The arrival of exams brings with it stress, the worry about cramming and the fear of performing poorly. While the degrees of stress vary in relation to preparedness, past experience, health and expectation, the common quiver in the belly is a common unifier.
All of us want to work smarter and/or work harder but we don’t and what follows is resolutions made in the aftermath to do better. But here’s the ABC strategy that I follow that helps me break the vicious cycle of stress and regret.
1) Attention is selective
Have you ever heard a secret conversation that people are having about you even if you are three rows away in a noisy room or reading a book on a crowded bus? Well, that is because you focused on that task. Our reality at a particular time is what we focus our attention on and hence, it is imperative that we choose and decide where it should be directed at.
When studying for exams is your priority, activities such as social media, phone conversations, snacking and mindless doodling act as extra tabs on your computer which are causing the functioning to slow down. Hence, take a deep breath, carve a separate space for study and cut out all distractions for a definite period of time. For me, the exercise begins with breaking down the time that I focus on a particular task, and eventually increases the time duration until I have completed my task. For example, if I have to revise for a test, I start with a focus on revision initially for 15mins, then take a break, then increase the focus time to 25mins and so on and so forth. This helps me avoid fatigue and keep my mind sharp and focused.
2) Beat Procrastination
Procrastination is a never-ending loop and we have all been guilty of doing it, if not always at least once. It happens once, we do it for the positive mental reward that we get and then some more and so on until we are almost passing the deadlines.
How do we not fall into the loop? Well, I like to break down my tasks to reduce their magnanimity and thus make it into small step-by-step doable tasks with rewards to instil a sense of accomplishment.
It’s like reaching the finish line but running a marathon and not a race.
3) Catch some sleep
This does not refer to any lofty goal setting, but actual sleeping. Nothing is more important than sleeping well during exams. This is not age-old advice without reason. Sleep basically has cycles of REM (dreaming sleep) and NREM (deep sleep). The REM part of it allows you to tap into your creativity and come up with solutions dipping into all your stored experiences and information. The NREM part allows the brain to convert learning into permanent memories. It helps consolidate what you have learnt into permanent recallable information. Moreover, these cycles happen multiple times through the night sleep cycle in varying durations. So don’t cut back on sleep. Think of it as perhaps the answer key to a lot of the questions you are going to see in the paper in the examination hall.
This may sound simple. It is… it is simply adjusting the way you approach an examination. It is an experiment worth trying. The best part is that it only gets more potent each time you activate it. Give it a shot and you may find yourself on the other side of stress.
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