The exam is not only a trial for your knowledge but also a test for your psychological durability. In order to pass the exam well, you need to strengthen your self-confidence.
In the first part of the article, we are going to discuss the nature and features of exam stress.
Where Does the Exam Stress Come From?
Stress can be caused by the intensive mind activity, by the muscle overload or staying in one pose for long, by sleep and rest regime disorders, etc.
But the main factor that provokes stress to develop is negativity in thoughts.
According to results of quizzes provided among students and graduates, they suffer from a headache, sickness and diarrhea; their skin illnesses become more intensive, they feel overall tiredness, confusion, panic and fear the most often. In addition, they become too self-critical, they suffer from nightmares and negative memories about their previous exam failures (not only their ones but someone else’s, too).
Stress causes a negative influence on the psychic of a human. This means worse memory, overtiredness and exhaustion during classes or lectures. One of the most unpleasant consequences of stress: the harmonic functioning of brain hemispheres gets broken.
When you are calm, both your hemispheres work in an organized way. The left hemisphere is busy with the analysis and logic. The right one is responsible for emotions and abstract images. Students who have their right hemisphere dominating, lose logic during stress: they can’t solve problems, bring formulas, etc. Students who have left hemispheres more developed lose the ability to imagine and to speak correctly. It is not an accident that after a failed exam students often say: “I’d lost my memory” or “I couldn’t say a word”. That is the exact description of things happening in human brains.
What are Features of Stress?
An exam is a serious durability test for student’s nerves.
As a rule, there are the following features during stress: you feel strong anxiety, you think that you can’t control the situation and can’t deal with the problem.
Stress state has certain biological features as well: strong heartbeat, increased irritation level, tiredness feeling, loss of appetite, disorientation. There can also happen inadequate emotional reactions, insomnia, headache, asthmatic symptoms, digestion disorders, overall badness and inability to relax.
Stress is able to cause a depression when a person can get sudden changes in their mood, bad appetite and sleep, lowered self-esteem.
Not many people know that stress has some positive features as well. It is necessary in small doses, and it signalizes about problems happening and “tunes” you up on adequate behavior when you’re in danger.
In case of exams, stress supplies your organism with the additional adrenaline dose, helping you stay shaped.
This is the end of a general exam stress discussion. See how to deal with stress in the next article.