It's Good To Talk: Exam stress and how to deal with it
A guide for students and carers on how to make exams as easy and as manageable for ourselves as we can
I have that dream now and again that I am back doing the Leaving Cert and its days away from the exam and I feel totally unprepared.
The dream I have is pretty common for people, linked to the stress and anxieties associated with the exam period.
Thankfully, now as an adult, I can look back on with (mostly) fond memories of that time in my life rather than just the exam stress.
However, adult words of wisdom don’t always register with that young person on the exam countdown. They are on their own journey and for them it might range from feeling the exams are never ending at times to feeling they are scarily close.
Exams are part of the life journey and stages of development
Yes, the children are going through the exams but so are the parents, albeit in a different way, however parents also might find this time in life very stressful and daunting, especially if experiencing it for the first time. Two important sentences to focus on before we go any further:
- Exams come and go, they do not define you as a person nor how happy or contented your life might be!
- It’s not easy being a parent, be kind to yourself and say to yourself what you might say to your child…..”you can only do your best!”
Dear student….
Breathe, breathe, breathe. Do this during times of stress, when you are studying, when you need a break from cramming, during the exams and then as you leave each exam and you acknowledge, accept and hopefully celebrate it being over.
The important thing is to breath it all out and let it go when it’s done. Do not go over the exam or your performance.
You will be judging your performance during a time of heightened stress so your appraisal of yourself will not be accurate, positive (remember we are negatively programmed) or helpful in any way.
We have to harvest the positive things that we can do and reinforce what we do have control over and reduce and avoid the unhelpful things that we all say and do to ourselves daily.
During exam time you have to be your own champion. You have to remind yourself of the wins, no matter how small that ‘win’ might be! Reframing your thoughts is a helpful tool for life.
An example is - a good night’s sleep might be a small win but a bad night’s sleep is not the end of the world, tonight is another chance to change it. Listening to that friend after the exam discuss their answer versus yours might cause unnecessary distress, especially if you presume they are right and you are wrong. Focusing on “you should have studied more” could be replaced by acknowledging the thought but asking yourself, “is it helpful right now?”
Would it be better to remind yourself of the study and work that you DID do? It’s important to recognize and process thoughts but not all your thoughts will be true or helpful.
What will be helpful to avoid in both the exam and lead up to it, is managing your flight, fight or freeze. This is the body’s natural stress response to perceived threat or fear. Breathing and using what works for you to calm your nervous system will bring you to a better place during this response.
It’s common for students to worry that they will blank or freeze during the exam. Stress and anxiety can alter our ability to function or perform but there is nothing to say this will happen to you.
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Taking that time at the start of the paper to settle your nerves by focusing on breathing, looking around the room and telling yourself that you know more than you realise will be helpful.
When you are ready, jot stuff down on your rough work pages to start the flow of information and jog your memory.
Do what you can first. Don’t focus on the challenging parts until you come to them, they will only overwhelm you if you give them attention before they need it.
Give your mind breaks and you are probably wondering, who has time for a break during exams? You do!
Breaks can be simply seconds but they will help reset and refocus and produce better work. When we produce something good, through whatever medium we use, we tend to feel more positive and can continue on to work more productively.
Reminding yourself of your ‘reset seconds’ should be your new mantra. Breaks in the lead up to the exams are also worth their weight in gold, as well as a few other key ingredients to success.
Nutrition
There are a few major factors to minding your nervous system in the lead up to the exams, starting with the basics of nutrition and sleep, these are hugely important. Stress and anxiety can cause people to lose their appetite however we need food to function and to perform so good nutrition cannot be ignored. You may need to tweak your food choices, eating patterns or snack breaks in a way that is manageable for you but going without food will only make things harder.
Sleep
Sleep is hard when we are anxious and often worry goes to bed with people so let’s incorporate an exercise called ‘brain dumb’ into the mix.
You simply put all your thoughts down on paper, it’s a way of getting them out of your head, relieving stress and improving your sleep. Looking at how you can work through these problems or anxieties can be helpful or you might just acknowledge and accept them. Essentially it gives your mind permission to focus on everything before you lie down to ‘switch-off’
Procrastination
We have all been there with things in our life that we put off or simply feel we cannot get to it or complete and we may not even know why.
Exam procrastination is normal and common. People get overwhelmed, stressed or stuck. Figure out why it’s hard to get going or keep going. Is it understanding the work? Are you exhausted? Are you worried about your ability or the end results?
This is the time to pull in help! Ensure you ask or get support if the study material isn’t clear to you. Ask family members to support you with reducing distractions or creating a good study environment.
Remove any devices that allow you to procrastinate or hinders your progress.
Bring up your energy by standing up, moving, drinking water, opening the window, clear your mind and countdown from 3,2,1 then start!! Do 10 minutes of complete focus.
Short time work goals help procrastination because it is extremely likely that after that time you might have actually focused – this can then lead to better feelings and a continuation of work momentum.
Outdoor and Connection
Being focused on your goals is great but to remain in a good physical and mental state of wellbeing balance is also important.
Having off time, breaks, meeting friends, exercising and getting outdoors will help your nervous system and allow you to recharge and reset, making you more productive in the long run.
Lastly, let's celebrate every little step! When each exam is done, don’t look at those books, don’t search for the answers you wrote - simply gather all of that subject material and put it away.
This will help you acknowledge what you have completed the exam and allows more focus on the ‘here and now’ and the next exam. Don’t forget to be kind, caring and compassionate to yourself, be your best supporter, mind yourself and show yourself the love. If you learn to do this, it will be the best learning in your life and stay with you well beyond any exam results.
Dear parents and caregivers
Parents and caregivers are often overlooked and as mentioned earlier, it can be a very stressful time watching someone you care about worrying, stressed or anxious during exam time.
Let’s not forget this extends to any exam, it doesn’t have to be exclusive to leaving cert, it might start at junior cert or even earlier and extend well into adulthood years. I hear from parents their feeling of helplessness. The worry that they are not doing enough to support the child or they simply don’t know how to!
Let me remind you I am still waiting on my parenting manual to be delivered so let’s all cut ourselves some compassion and acknowledge that it’s ok not to know every aspect of the hardest job in the world! Now that we have that out of the way let’s look at what might be helpful for you, your child and the family unit at this stressful time.
Help them manage their time
Some students find it hard to manage their time, others hyperfocus on time and may overdo it, going for quantity over quality.
Talk to them and ask questions! What distractions could you help them manage? What’s the hardest part of managing their time? When are they less focused, the evenings, the weekends etc.. how can you talk about this to bring a connection together to essentially support them and you, by feeling you are doing something to help.
Some families, depending on the circumstances may tweak family routine or the chore schedule during this time. You will know what works best for your family needs. Offering to go through questions or testing the child on certain topics might be helpful too, depending on the child and their personality.
Sometimes letting the child know that you understand how time management can be hard normalizes their feelings on this and reminds them that it’s ok to talk about this and their exam worries. Their fear of not doing as well as they would like might be very real for them or they might use the term,
“fear of failing” - powerful words that can produce really big emotions.
Guide and Support
Getting this balance right can be hard for adults, never mind adolescence, so offer guidance ideally without referring to when you were doing the exams - as most teenagers already think their parents grew up in the dinosaur era, so what would we know!
Often during times of stress it can be difficult to manage some conversations or interactions without an argument so get your offspring on board for a collaborative effort with questions like… “how can we work on managing your sleep better?” or “What will be helpful right now with making sure you are eating well?”
Put it to them, allow them to be part of it and then guide, support and check-in on how it’s working out for both them and you.
During this talk remind yourself about your eating, your anxiety around the exams and your sleep. Just like the newborn stage, you can only help and mind them if you mind yourself too!
Let’s talk emotions
This is about support, conversations and opening dialogue to break down barriers or preventing the barriers going up, which will hopefully allow you to see what might be really going on with your child.
Keep an eye out for anger and withdrawing. It’s less obvious than other signs that someone might be struggling emotionally. If anger is at play it can be easy to match their anger with yours so time out and counting to 10 might be top of the agenda to keep communication open rather than shutting it down or escalating things. Asking “are you ok?,” might go a long way for both them and you.
As a parent it is common to feel, ‘if they are ok, you are ok’, however we all need to be ok, neglecting yourself will not be helpful during this time in your life.
Your self-care
It’s easy to say that the exams shouldn’t take over the focus of the whole family but that’s not always possible. The stress and anxiety of exams can take its toll on everyone so creating a balance of other stuff, routine and normality is important.
Minding the caregivers is very important and leaving self-care until the exams are over is putting your mind and body through unnecessary stress and anxiety. Self-care is every day, five or 10 minutes here or there and always at the top of the everyday to-do list.
It’s not just the golf break or weekend away when it’s all over, by all means do that too but self-care is basic stuff daily, it’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity!
Check-in with yourself on what you need emotionally, physically and mentally.
Lastly, celebrate the milestones of the exams being over and give yourself a pat on the back. I cannot reinforce this enough…as parents we are all only doing what we might tell our children to do…. “trying our best” and that’s worth a gold star alone!
All good wishes,
Tracy x