How to Handle Exam Stress: 5 Practical Techniques

Feeling like you’ve not done enough revision, fearing that you’re going to fail, or finding yourself under pressure from family and friends – coping with exam stress can be a lot.

Exam stress can affect teenagers’ emotional well-being and academic performance, leading many to wonder how to manage exam stress. 1 Young people who find coping with exam stress difficult and taxing on their mental health are often advised to see a mental health professional. Yes, seeing a mental health professional is highly rewarding for your emotional and physical well-being – but there are also practical steps you can take in your daily life. 

If you or someone you care about is finding coping with exam stress difficult, the techniques in this post can help. However, if exam stress is affecting your well-being, they are not a substitute for seeing a mental health professional. It’s OK to need and seek help – especially when your well-being is at risk. 

5 Practical Tips for Coping With Exam Stress

1. Manage Your Time^2,3

Often, the first thing that goes out the window when we’re worried about how to handle exam stress is the ability to manage time. We might procrastinate, focus on less-important tasks, or find it hard to concentrate – all of which can increase stress and cause overwhelm. 

To help better manage your time, you could create a “hierarchy schedule.” A hierarchy schedule simply involves writing down a list of tasks that need to be completed in order of importance. To create and follow a hierarchy schedule, try taking the following steps:

1. Each evening, spend a couple of minutes jotting down everything you think you need to do the next day. 
2. Put these tasks in order of importance. For example, you may put “studying” as your number one task, or “complete a group project.”
3. The next day, tick these tasks off as you complete them. Seeing these ticks can increase your sense of control, boost your self-esteem and confidence, and make you feel more positive in general. 

Alternatively, if creating a list of tasks that start with the most important feels too overwhelming to start your day off with, you could instead put the easier tasks first. Doing so can boost your confidence in tackling the more difficult ones. You could also try clustering your tasks to better manage your time. For instance, doing all household chores first instead of spreading them throughout the day, and then turning your attention to schoolwork. 

2. Learn How to Relax^4,5

When we’re stressed, our bodies tend to enter “fight or flight” mode, which means that we release hormones designed to help us confront or flee from a threat. But exams aren’t something we can either fight against or flee from. Therefore, these hormones have no release, often causing chronic stress which can affect our ability to relax and sleep. 

There are a variety of techniques you can use to help you relax when coping with exam stress. A lot of people find the following useful:

• Breathing exercises
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Visualizations
• Repeating positive statements in your mind

Breathing exercises work well for relaxation as they can be practiced anywhere, at any time – even during an exam. The following “Alternate Nostril Breathing” technique is an excellent way of calming the nervous system for exam stress management. 

1. Sit comfortably with your spine straight
2. Notice your breathing; don’t try to change it, just pay attention to it
3. On a slow exhale, use your right thumb to close your right nostril
4. Breathe in through the left nostril for a count of four
5. Now, release the right nostril and use your left thumb to close your left nostril
6. Slowly exhale through your right nostril
7. Breathe in through the right nostril for a count of four
8. Once you reach a count of four, release the left nostril and close off the right one again
9. Slowly exhale through the left nostril

Repeat this exercise as often as needed, but aim for a minimum of five alterations between nostrils. Once you’re done, you’ll likely notice a difference in how your body and mind feel.

3. Practice Self-Care⁶

Self-care is the things we do to look after our mental health. Its meaning lies in its title: “self” and “care.” You’re simply choosing to factor activities into your life that help you look after yourself. By practicing self-care, you’re managing your stress, lowering your risk of getting sick, and improving your confidence. 

Self-care works best when it’s meaningful to you – what works well for someone else might not work as well for you. Self-care can be anything from chilling out in a onesie, playing a video game, or working out – as long as it makes you feel good. Even though there are no hard and fast rules about what makes up self-care, the following are general self-care rules of thumb:

• Think about what makes your life meaningful: Do you enjoy downtime, time spent with your family, friends, or pet, or do you like to be active? Once you pick these things, aim to factor them into your everyday life. 
• Take care of the basics: When stressed, we can forget to prioritize nutrition, sleep, and exercise. Make sure you eat regular, healthy meals, set up a “sleep routine,” and try to squeeze around 20-30 minutes of exercise into your day. Each of these actions can increase the “feel good hormones” in the brain, so they can boost your mood and concentration – and reduce stress. 
• Try a relaxation activity: Relaxation can include techniques such as meditation and mindfulness, but it can also be taking a bath, watching a favorite film, or chilling with a playlist of relaxing songs. 
• Stay connected: When we’re stressed, we often withdraw from our friends and family because we may feel overwhelmed and fearful of losing control of our emotions. Yet, your family and friends can keep you grounded. Plus, they can also give you much-needed perspective and boost your mood.

4. Add Positive Things to Your Life^7,8

We all have needs. To survive, we need food, water, sleep, and so on. These are our basic security needs. But what about emotional needs – are these as important as security needs? Well, yes. Recently mental health professionals have accepted that our emotional needs are just as important to our well-being as security ones are. Yet, during times of stress, we often neglect our emotional needs.

There are a lot of different emotional needs, and everyone can have ones that are specific to them. For example, one person can have a need for affection, but another might have one for independence. You might have a need for:

• A sense of belonging
• Hobbies and activities that give you a sense of purpose
• Support from family and friends
• Accomplishment 

This is only a short list – you might have very different emotional needs than these. However, they can work as a guide for recognizing whether you’re neglecting certain needs because you’re so focused on exam stress. Once you have identified a couple of emotional needs, try to put them in order of importance. Then, factor in daily or weekly activities that can help you meet these needs. 

For example, if you have a need for “accomplishment,” you could practice a skill that gives you a sense of achievement. Alternatively, if you need “support,” you could communicate to a family member or friend that you’re feeling overwhelmed by stress – they’ll likely give you the understanding and listening ear you need. 

5. Create a “Mantra”^9,10

Mantra is an ancient technique that can help people achieve high-level performance. It’s tied to the belief that we are the agents of control in our own lives – so we have the power to think, act, and feel the way we want. Therefore, creating a mantra that’s meaningful to you can help you focus, feel confident, and reduce exam stress. 

Traditional mantras were based on hymns and chants to promote a more peaceful state of mind. However, you can make a personal mantra – one that relates to exactly what you’re going through. There are no right or wrong mantras, all that matters is that they help you feel more in control. The following steps can help you create and practice mantras to cope with exam stress:

1. Spend around half an hour journaling or “free writing” about what you’re feeling stressed about and want to achieve. Spending this time writing – without judgment of what you write – can give you clarity on what you feel and what you want the outcome to be. 
2. Once you’re finished writing, read what you wrote and try to detect any themes. For example, you might realize that there’s a theme of fear of failure. Or, you might notice that your desired outcome is just to do the best you can. Make a note of these themes.
3. Try to turn these themes into clear statements. For instance, “I have prepared for this. No matter what happens, I will be OK,” or “I am capable, I will do my best.”
4. Aim to spend 10 minutes every day (preferably in the morning) repeating the mantra to yourself. This helps to make it an ingrained part of how you think. Also, if you’re struggling to sleep, you can repeat it to yourself as you try to drift off. 

When to Seek Help for Overcoming Exam Anxiety

Exam time can create a lot of pressure and stress for teens. Prolonged exam stress can cause a teenager to experience mood swings, fatigue, physical pain such as stomach aches and muscle tension, and distress. Therefore, it’s clear that, if not managed, exam stress can affect a teenager’s emotional and physical well-being.

Coping with exam stress in healthy ways can lead to better mental health – and even improved exam results. If coping with exam stress is affecting your or a loved one’s well-being, Mission Prep can help. 

At Mission Prep, we understand the impact that academic stress can have on teenagers. We aim to improve each teen’s well-being by providing individualized, empathetic, and effective care – ensuring the best possible outcomes for their future. Contact us today to find out more. 

References

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