- Q) During exams, do you… • feel like you “go blank”? • Become frustrated?
Exam Stress……..
Natural Feeling……………..
Let’s LEARN to deal with it
4 p’s for Accomplishment and relieve stress
- Plan purposefully
- Proceed positively
- Prepare prayerfully
- Pursue persistently
Methods to relieve stress
Thus your paper should be:
- Smart
- Neat
- Well organized
- Systematic
- Attention grabbing
- All revealing
FINALLY THE 5 “A’S” FOR CONTROLLING THE EXAM STRESS:
- Acknowledging
- Appreciating
- Alleviating
- Altering
- Avoiding
- Acknowledging the stress and strain – In everyday life, stress manifests as mental or physical tension, which you would rather not have. Recognize that stressors of various kind are inevitable and in the preparedness of life, one needs to learn to handle them. Examination is one of them.
- Appreciating what causes your stress -Then, instead of blaming yourself or failing to cope, you enumerate and end up pinpointing the sources and then tackling that.
- 3. Alleviating the pressures is all about resorting to simple stress-busting techniques. Perhaps you have calming vision to look at when you need a mental escape from your surroundings. Or you may relax your muscle before you go to sleep.
- Altering your lifestyle is the next step towards Exam Stress. Once you’ve seen the benefits of relaxation, it will encourage you to develop more permanent ways of reducing stress. If stress continues to be persistent, either you haven’t tried the major stress alleviating formulae or alternately you haven’t kept them up long enough to deliver the needed result.
- 5. Avoiding – This last step is the toughest but also the most beneficial. You have to start avoiding stress increasing habits and burnouts. Completely avoid sleeping pills, smoking and “memory” pills etc. Avoid irregular eating, sleeping and sedentary habits which may compound the levels of stress.
Small activity for memorization
Try this little memory test.
In 15 seconds try to memorize these 13 items. Then write down as many as you can remember.
Boat, hot, dog, pencil, fruit, car, phone, ruler, mustard, trolley, ants, chair,train,
How did you do?
Most people will remember 6 or 7 of the items on the list. But when people group these same items into categories (as they are below), they find that the items are easier to remember, and their scores are higher.
Ways to travel – boat, train, car, trolley
Picnic items – hot dog, fruit, mustard, ants
Office items – pencil, phone, ruler, chair
Grouping makes things easier to remember
Some other methods:
Optimumlearning:
Studying at every available opportunity can lead to information overload. We suggest that you set yourself a program and stick to it as much as possible. Studying for 20 minutes at a time, followed by a ‘reflection period’ on what you have learned and then a 10 minute break – is ideal for optimum learning
Simplify to simply fly! Take your priority list of things to do and narrow it down to a more manageable list that does not overwhelm you by simply looking at it. Remember to simplify to simply fly and ask yourself what would happen if you somehow were out of the picture and the tasks sat on your priority list? Who would attend to them in your prolonged absence? If you can then delegate that task to another person, then do so and let them stress about it instead of you! Management by delegation and control
Black-and-white thinking:
This is when we only look at situations in terms of extremes things are either good or bad, a success or a failure. But, in reality, most events call for a more ‘moderate’ explanation.
For example, missing one class assignment does not mean you have failed the entire course you just need to get caught up in class and/or complete the next assignment.
“If I don’t get a good mark, I’ll totally fail.”
“I planned to study 6 hours and I know I only studied for 4 and a half. Now there’s no way I can pass!”
From,
S.SREELATHA
PSYCHOLOGIST
