Why am I too stressed during examinations?

Hi, I am a university student currently in my second year, my problem is that I often get too stressed during exams. I have tried to manage it but I just can’t handle it sometimes. This worries me especially with the fact that it might affect my performance when I most need it. What do you think I should do?

Stress is natural part of being human. It’s your body responding to changes in the world around you. It changes how your body works and puts your mind into different moods. When you’re getting a bit stressed about an exam - it just means that you really care about the result you will get. Stress can be caused by anything that requires you to adjust to a change in your environment, it can be brought about by a traumatic accident, death, or emergency situation, and it can also be a side effect of a serious illness or disease.

Stress is often caused by worries, job pressures, trying to live up to other peoples’ expectations, jealousy, anger, greed, love, and hate can all cause stress in our lives.

problems of stress can easily compound if it is not possible to satisfactorily deal with a particular situation at the time; a person’s safe and secure life can very quickly become extremely disrupted leading to physical and mental health problems and sometimes homelessness or addictions. It is important that you try to keep your sleep routine as regular as possible because staying up all night just won’t help. Take a break, this is really important, you should give yourself plenty of short breaks as you revise, this keeps you fresher for longer, so you will learn more.

Time for yourself; try to leave enough time in your revision for some fun. You will need to put your books down and do something you enjoy for a while if you want to stay in a good mood.

Be realistic; don’t try to do too much work each day. If you overdo it you won’t take in the facts you’re revising. Eat properly make sure your diet includes plenty of fruit and veg. Drink juice or water, avoid too much tea or coffee. Get some exercise; it’s a fantastic stress buster. Go running, play a sport, or just take a walk around the block. You will feel more relaxed. If you’re not sleeping very well, exercise can sometimes make a real difference.

Be positive, don’t beat yourself up about things, instead, be nice to yourself. Make a quick list of five things you’ve done that you are proud of. This will put you in a good mood and you will learn more.

Chill out, if you are starting to lose it, and feel that the studying is getting on top of you.