Coping with Examination Stress
15 year old, Rita complained of fatigue, recurrent episodes of headache, stomach ache, poor appetite, insomnia and body ache, one week prior to her 10th std board exams. Her parents consulted many reputed doctors, did a number of blood tests, Xrays and brain scans that were reported as normal. They tried multiple analgesics but Rita’s complaints persisted. She was then referred to an adolescent specialist who diagnosed exam anxiety and stress as a cause of her symptoms. The doctor taught her techniques to manage stress that helped her to recover. Later she appeared for her exams and cleared them successfully.
17 year old, Shyam, a 12th std Commerce student did not perform well in the Business Studies exam. He expressed his disappointment to his mother, “Mom, I think I’ll fail. I cannot face my friends and the world; they will think that I’m a dud!” His mother asked him to put in his best for the rest of the exam papers. A few minutes later he committed suicide.
Examination stress can be life threatening! It can also cause poor health. According to the National Crime Records Bureau Report 2010, students account for 5.5% of all suicides in India, maximum (35.4%) suicides occur in 15-29 years age group. Exam failure is the most common cause after illness and family problems in this group. The harsh reality is that no student can escape from exams and exams do cause stress. Every student has to learn to tackle and manage this stress appropriately in an emotionally healthy manner.
What is Stress?
Scientifically, stress is the body’s adaptation response to any demand or pressure. In a stressful situation, the brain signals a few glands in the body to produce hormones namely adrenaline and cortisol to combat stress by improving alertness, increasing the heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate for obtaining more energy and oxygen. Once the stressful situation abates, the body relaxes and gets back to its normal state.
Is stress always harmful?
Excessive stress also called distress is harmful. It keeps the body in a state of prolonged ‘emergency’ leading to a breakdown and poor health- both physical and psychological! And that is exactly what happened in Rita’s and Shyam’s case! Children and adolescents have immature physiological mechanisms to deal with stress and hence need training to build up skills to manage stress. With increasing age the brain matures and is able to handle stress more efficiently. Adolescents i.e individuals from 10-18 years of age have a mature emotional centre in the brain with a relatively immature control centre. This is responsible for mood swings, poor control of emotions and impulsive behaviour in this age. They indulge in high risk behaviour like aggressiveness, violence, self harm, suicide and drug use, especially when they are under stress. Stress that can be easily managed by a child or an adolescent without harmful effects is called eustress and infact helps in improving performance in exams by improving attention and concentration. This is illustrated in the figure below
How can parents and teachers help children to cope with examination stress?
Parents, teachers, counsellors and adolescent health specialists can help children in coping with exam stress. Parents can model health stress management techniques themselves by following a healthy lifestyle and coping skills. A healthy lifestyle includes having a balanced diet, avoiding junk food, caffeine and drugs, exercising for an hour everyday, having an adequate sleep for 8- 9 hours and spending time for relaxation. Parents should also ensure that the children have received all immunisations appropriate for their age to avoid any vaccine preventable disease just before exams.
How can parents and teachers motivate the children to perform to their potential?
Much of the stress before exams can be prevented if parents and teachers can motivate children to follow the habit of studying regularly and using study skills to improve their efficiency, throughout the academic year. Both teachers and parents should have appropriate expectations from the children regarding their performance in exams. Self esteem of the children has to be built up by appreciating their strengths and helping them to overcome their weaknesses. Parents should express unconditional love for their children; their love should not be proportionate to the marks scored in the exams. Emphasis should be given on putting in ones best effort and not on marks alone. The children should be encouraged to compete with their own past performances and to strive to improve their scores. Constantly comparing them with their peers, lowers their self esteem. Parents should always be available for their children especially during the exam period to soothen their frayed nerves by warm and reassuring words. Listening to music, dancing, talking to friends, yoga, meditation, praying, joining a laughter club, pursuing hobbies, deep breathing exercises are all great stress busters. Children can pick and choose what they like; parents should encourage them to spend some time in such relaxation activities.
What can children and adolescents do to cope with examination stress?
Children can keep stress at bay by adopting a healthy lifestyle and relaxation techniques as mentioned above. They should plan their time well and make a study time table that they could implement and follow easily. Just before the exams, they should concentrate on consolidating what they already know rather than learning something new. Solving previous years test papers is a good way of testing ones knowledge and gauging ones weaknesses. Children should not hesitate to seek help from parents, teachers or other well wishers whenever they feel ‘low’!
Exam taking strategies
A day before the exam, students should keep all materials like pens, pencils, hall tickets etc ready, revise only important points and sleep well. On the day of the exam, they should avoid last minute consultation with friends and appear for the exam in a positive frame of mind. During the exam, they should ‘time’ the paper, keep some time for revision and write legibly. After finishing one exam, they should avoid pondering on the mistakes done in that exam paper; instead they should concentrate on preparing for the next exam. They should avoid stress building beliefs like ‘I should always stand first’ or ‘I should always score 100%’…..just putting in their best effort would ensure the best results!!
How can students appear in the examinations without fear? Enjoy learning…enjoy studying…..enjoy exams…..
Children should enjoy the process of learning and not feel awed by exams. They should consider exams as ‘celebration of learning’- a time where they can showcase what they have learnt and not simply a time of ‘groans’ and ‘moans’! This would enable children to treat exams as just another milestone, albeit an important one, that they can achieve easily without any stress!