How To Cope With Stress Before Your Finals – Linda Craig
No matter how well prepared you might be for your important final exams, it is
human nature to be nervous and stressed before the big day actually arrives.
Nervousness and even more serious cases of anxiety have been linked to taking
exams for years, with numerous different studies being conducted to pinpoint
reactions and reasons for these feelings. If you are one such person that finds
themselves riddled with worry and stress during exam periods, then take a look at
these handy tips for reducing anxiety levels. We are sure you will find at least one
piece of advice that will be helpful.
1. Embrace The Nerves
The logical timeline of exam anxiety is to be riddled with worry beforehand, go in to
finish the exams, and then feel great afterwards. This same pattern has repeated
itself dozens of times in your school career, so try to embrace the nerves and
constantly remind yourself that these feelings of apprehension are only ever
2. How Do Stress And Anxiety Work?
Stress and anxiety in a person nearly always invokes the ‘fight or flight’ response in
humans. For example, you may enter a dark room, see a tall figure in the corner and
immediately want to run away. However, as soon as you realise that the dark figure
is in fact just a coat on a coat stand, you are immediately put back at ease and have
no worries. Gaining a grasp of this internal ‘stress switch’ is vital to beating finals
panic, and by reminding yourself that it is not the end of world, either by things like
meditation, a herbal tea or even a last minute chat with friends, can help you to
enter the exam hall with a much more open and calm mind than before.
3. Imagine a Plan B
In order to try to take some mental importance off of the two hours of your exam,
make a few plans for the future that do not depend on the success of your grades.
For example, planning a summer holiday with family or friends, or buying tickets to a
popular music festival. And in a more serious sense, you can also plan for might
happen if you don’t do as well in your exams as you had hoped. Making yourself see
that there are options past the exam will take a lot of the debilitating importance
4. Schedule Revision
Something that the writers at http://www.assignmentmasters.co.uk/essay-service/
cannot stress enough is the need to schedule proper time for full and extensive
revision. Not even the most gifted students can expect to walk in to an exam with no
preparation and get top marks. The key to being as stress-free as possible when the
day finally comes is to have done so much studying and revision in previous days
that nothing that could come up on the paper could possibly catch you out. Search
online for practise papers in your chosen subject too, that way you will also be
familiar with the way the questions are formatted as well as having all of the
knowledge you need in your head ready to go.
5. Accept That This Is Your Moment
When it gets to the point where you are lined up outside the exam waiting to find
your table, the best thing to do is to try to just let go the stress that has been
building up, because either way it is not going to be helpful at this late stage. At the
end of the day, you cannot possibly have control over what questions are written on
that exam paper, and a lack of control is the key reason for people growing feelings
of stress. Let this feeling of no control wash over you and try to understand that with
your revision and your meditation, you have prepared as well as you could have.
Linda Craig is an editor. She is currently working on her PhD work and wants to share some tips about organization management in education.
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