How to prepare for exams without stress is a topic that students and university students want to know what to do. How will they cope with stress? Because each exam is important to their future.
Exams are a type of competition that can decide the life of students studying in universities and high school students who have to say goodbye to school and enter the university of their dreams. Education has made us accustomed to stress, anxiety, headaches, insomnia, or news of children being so stressed about exams that their health deteriorates. The worst is when they give up on disappointment from results that are not as they expected.
In other words, exams are also an educational tragedy. Therefore, we must have a way to stop this tragedy from happening again. Today, I have a seminar project on the topic of ” How to prepare for exams without stress: Occupational therapy for good study without depression “, which Asst. Prof. Dr. K.B. Supalak Khemthong and Asst. Prof. Dr. K.B. Winai Chatthong, lecturers from the Faculty of Physical Therapy, Mahidol University, will share their knowledge with us this time. If you are ready, let’s learn how to take exams without stress.
The brain may seem like a complex organ, but when we measure brain waves, we get a clear picture of the data. The location where the brain waves are measured is the frontal lobe of the brain, which is an important location responsible for controlling behavior, solving problems, planning, controlling emotions, and expressing emotions. The good news is that the frontal lobe of the brain is a location that can be trained.
- Memory
- Control your emotions
- Catch the timing
Changing the brain to turn negative stress into positive stress that benefits the body can be done through training and emotional training.
Techniques to help train the frontal lobe of the brain to remember well
1. Listening: Let’s try to observe ourselves to see which ear we hear best by opening both arms, raising the elbows, and holding the wind towards the ear. Do this 3 times. Observe which ear we hear the wind sound the clearest.
“A clear wind sound on the right side means that we need to manage our emotions. Maybe we are easily stressed or excited.”
How to practice: For people who are easily stressed or excited, place your hands on top of each other to make a cross on your chest. Lift your right leg and tilt your right ear to make it work. Then count out loud from 1 to 30. If you feel like you are going to fall, spread your arms out but still tilt your right ear. When you are done, test your ears again. If you hear a softer sound and it is not as clear as the first time, it means that your stress or excitement has decreased.
“The sound of wind on the left side is clear, meaning that we are a person who thinks too much, because the left ear is the ear that is rational.”
How to practice: Insert your middle finger into your ear hole, then place your finger behind your ear and pull your ear back. Do the same thing 3 times. Doing this will stimulate the automatic nerves of the inner ear. If we do it and then touch our heart, we will find that our heart beats slower because we are thinking less.
Stress management can be done before going to class, before studying, or before doing anything that we feel will cause us stress.
2. Visualize: In each exam, we may have to read 200-300 pages of thick books, and it may not be just one book, not including the study sheets that the teacher has given us to read additionally. Therefore, it is not strange if we cannot remember the content of every page of the book. The visualization technique in this point will recommend that everyone use the color image technique.
The color image technique is to use your favorite color to emphasize important words or underline the text you want. The color you use is very important. In fact, our brain can only receive 2 colors: light green and light blue. Generally, the brain perceives these 2 colors differently. Important words that we delve into to read further or translate into our own language are light green. When reading the second round and wanting to predict the exam questions, such as this question, this chapter, this line, the teacher has emphasized that it will definitely be on the exam, use light blue. Or if you have enough time, use light blue to write what you read in your own language and use light green to emphasize important words as well.
“Don’t think that you can remember it after reading it once. Your brain needs to read it at least twice.”
Confident, remember, remember accurately, understand
In addition to the 2 techniques above that will help us, sometimes we ourselves have to change the method from listening attentively or writing in a notebook to a cheat code by stimulating the brain to help us decide which part is important. Let’s raise two fingers like a fighting symbol with our dominant hand, tap lightly between the eyebrows and say “Confident, remember, remember well, understand”, repeat 3 times. Doing this helps to awaken positive emotions because the part of the brain that we tap is the part used to control, inhibit and decide. Therefore, when we tap on this point before reading a book, we will know which part we should read, which line is important and which line can be exited.
“The brain is more interested in reading and writing in books or notebooks than in iPads.”
Nowadays, the iPad has become a big part of learning. Some people use the iPad more often than they use a notebook. However, when measuring the brain waves of students, when they take notes on what they are studying using the iPad, they will have a higher frequency of brain waves than when they write on paper. A high frequency means that we are stressed, and a low frequency means that we are relaxed and have less anxiety.
“If you have time to read, you must have time to rest.”
We often sit and read books for longer than we should without realizing it because we think that the more we read, the better we will be able to do in the exam. However, sitting for a long time will cause the brain to tire and deteriorate faster. Studies have found that sitting for more than 90 minutes can cause the brain to be unable to cope, resulting in weakness, causing drowsiness or headaches. Moreover, if we use an iPad to study, it will definitely damage our brain. At least there should be a break for students to move their bodies every 30 minutes.
How to move your body
An easy way to move your body is to leave both hands at your sides, clench your left hand 10 times, then clench your right hand another 10 times. Do it slowly, focusing and concentrating while doing it. This clench technique is from Japan and can help reduce blood pressure. When we sit for too long, a lot of blood goes to the heart but not to the brain. But to be safe for the heart, we should clench one hand at a time. Doing this will make us feel more relaxed.
“Thumbs up, worries”
This is a method from Japan. It is used before we enter the exam room or before studying. It is a time when our emotions are not stable, such as anxiety, fear, stress, pressure, etc. Open both hands and stretch them out in front of you. Wrap your right hand around your left thumb and place them anywhere for about 1 minute. Say to yourself, “Don’t worry, we will do well.” While doing this, you can walk or sit.
“Index and middle finger, fear and anger.”
What hurts us from the results of the exam is expectations, especially Gen Z kids these days. They have high expectations of themselves, are ambitious, and are willing to invest a lot of effort to get the best results. When everything doesn’t go as expected, fear turns into anger. Our fear and anger are our index and middle fingers. Let’s wrap our index and middle fingers around each other and say to ourselves, “Stop being afraid, stop being angry about the exam. We can do it.” We have to dare to talk to ourselves. It’s even more effective if we say it out loud. It only takes 1 minute.
Techniques to relieve stress for both body and mind
Before taking a shower or washing your face, stand with your legs spread apart, feet apart, bend down and reach forward, count 1-12, then stand up. Do this 10 times. Doing this will help your body build new pink muscles. In addition to making your body stronger, it also helps relieve stress. It’s a technique from Japan. If you’re Japanese, do it 30 times. It really helps to make your body and mind stronger and relieve stress.
When asked what problems students or learners face during exams, they probably can’t escape problems like insomnia, losing concentration due to noise, not knowing when to study to remember the best, or how to sleep to study fast enough and get enough rest, etc. Today, Admin has brought Dr. Pop’s answer for everyone.
- Insomnia : Because when exams are approaching, most children will be stressed and unable to sleep or feel that they shouldn’t sleep because they should use the time to study instead. But in fact, to remember well, everyone should get 6 hours of sleep. If we sleep for about 15 minutes or less, we will not get enough sleep and will not be able to remember any information. And lack of sleep will also trigger anxiety.
- Reading a book with noise and losing concentration : If hearing noise and losing concentration, the first thing we need to do is check whether the side we hear is the left or right ear by using the method of using our hand to push air towards the ear as taught above. If it is the right ear, it means that we are in the mood to find trouble, so we must use methods to manage our emotions. But if it is the left ear, it means that we are thinking too much. Use methods to manage our overthinking and anxiety so that we can regain our concentration to read the book as before.
- The best time to read a book : Actually, we can read at any time. Try to find a quiet corner. Reading a book depends on our concentration. But the best time is in the morning, eat breakfast between 7 and 9 a.m. The food is feeding the brain. You can continue reading while the brain is still active. Or if you are someone who can wake up very early, between 4 and 6 a.m. is the time when the brain is ready to receive the most. But you must sleep early for 6 hours before reading.
- Best time to sleep : Since Gen Z often has high hopes for their exams, many force themselves to study until late at night. Some study until morning, and some choose not to sleep at all. However, the best time to sleep for exam preparation is between 10 and 11 p.m. However, if your head hits the pillow and you still feel restless and can’t sleep, follow a Japanese technique that helps reduce stress in both your body and mind before going to bed.
Conclusion
Taking an exam doesn’t mean that we can’t make mistakes. Don’t view the exam as a competition that you have to beat others. View the exam as a competition with yourself. Today we can make mistakes, tomorrow we will be better. Don’t compare with others. Don’t compare your score with the teacher’s score. Don’t compare who you are with your family’s expectations. These things will make us carry too much expectation and cause us anxiety.
When we expect too much, we will get angry with ourselves. We need to let go of our fear and anger. What we need to do is to fall and get back up quickly. Whatever we did wrong, open our hearts to accept it and fix it. Continue to develop ourselves. Everyone’s life always has a path to walk.
“We will learn and grow stronger from our fears and anxieties.”
