No meaningless Slogans today! We won’t say that “you need to be positive to manage your nerves’ or some other platitude. Nerves demonstrate a clear and often understandable fear, with exams that can dictate the direction of your life, being nervous is the most normal aspect. Today, we only want to share some practical ways to ensure you can manage your nerves a little better.
- Take breaks.
We know you’ll say something like, “no, I have no time and I still have lots to learn” but hear us out. By taking the time off to have some fun, when it comes time to get back to studying for the final exams, your concentration, productivity and time efficiency will improve, it is in fact quite abnormal to study for an our straight, with some studies suggesting 3-45 minutes is the top end of a continuous study period.
What can you do when you take breaks? Often you only need 5 – 15 minutes at a time, with occasional longer breaks. The idea is to ‘switch off’ so anything like a movie, listening to music, grabbing a cup of coffee and chatting with close friends or heading outside for a quick breather is all that is needed to reset.
- Move your body!
Revision can mean hours of sitting which is a burden on your brain and body. However, physical exercise is key here and it keeps you healthy and increases your endorphins. Thus helping you to relax and stay motivated. Once released and you have improved your mood, you know you will have much more energy to continue preparing for the exam. This can be done on your quick breaks!
- Set realistic goals.
Now, let’s explore why you’re nervous. People become nervous when they are uncertain about their future and one of the possible outcomes is not what you want. This causes you to remain ‘alert’ to the potential danger and induces stress. Cortisol will be one of your stress hormones that are perhaps a little high right now.
This is normal, but sometimes the best way to manage these is to set small, more realistic goals that increase in difficulty at a time. Often our students set their aspirations too high too soon. Whilst they could still reach them, changing their mindset to ‘micro-steps’ is often far more effective.
How much effort did you put in this term? What’s your grade for your mock test? Setting realistic goals makes you feel at ease, and once you have reached the first micro-step’ you can start the next.
- Get enough sleep.
Lots of students sleep much less before exams and they want to squeeze time studying and revising. That is a bad cycle: when they sleep less, they feel they deserve much more in academic performance. And then they worry what if all these efforts make nothing and start getting more nervous. Once they’re nervous, they struggle to sleep and they become more nervous. And how do you break this cycle?
- Do Not sleep less at the beginning. Human’s brain is smart and it knows how much information it can absorb, and it will have its own break even if you want it to work with you.
- You should study and revise as early as possible, find an effective way and keep your daily routine normal.
- The final 2 hours of your day should be for relaxing, not studying. This will allow you to ‘switch off’ and enter a more natural sleep.
- Have a nice dinner.
If you want a burger or sweets, we’re not here to tell you to cut things out of your diet. Comfort food is, well… comforting. we know a lot of people would say, “before exams you can’t eat this or that”. No, that only makes you want more and you may be irritable especially when you’re studying hard and under pressure. Really, eat anything you want, just control the amount and be sure it’s clean. Though, I have some suggestions except food you like.
- Water (It’s generally recommended to drink around 1.5 litres of water a day.)
- Eggs (cooked however you like)
- Peanut butter
- Fruit (try eating a few fresh or dried cherries an hour before bed if you can’t sleep well).
- Nuts (not if you have a nut allergy though)
- Dark leafy greens (helps build pathways in the brain and improves alertness
- Ask for help if you feel nervous.
What type of help can you ask for? Anyone! Nervous because of some topics you don’t understand? Ask your tutor for Help! Nervous because parents have too high expectations? Ask your parents for help! Nervous for nothing but still nervous? Ask friends, family, or anyone you trust for help!
If you are deeply struggling with these issues, you need to contact and let those around you help and support you. Sometimes, despite how well we perform, the stress and weight is too much on our shoulders. If you need professional help, you can jump to this site: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/mental-health-services/where-to-get-urgent-help-for-mental-health/ And contact those you feel you need to.