How to Deal With Exam Anxiety?

Exam anxiety is common amongst university students

Do you struggle with remaining calm during examinations? Are standardised tests a great source of stress and anxiety for you? Does this anxiety impair your performance?

If you answered yes, you probably suffer from exam anxiety, which can be mild or severe. Some symptoms that can manifest because of exam anxiety are:

•       Physical – Headache, nausea, vomiting, increased sweating, shortness of breath, diarrhoea, rapid heartbeat, light-headedness, and feeling faint.

•       Psychological – depression, irritation, low self-esteem and demotivation

•       Cognitive– impaired memory, procrastination, difficulty concentrating, and negative self-talk

This post is geared toward solutions to the problem based on my experience and the information I have garnered from various sources. Disclaimer: The issues you are experiencing may be due to mental health illnesses such as depression, generalised anxiety disorder, ADHD, etc. Moreover, I am not a mental health professional. Therefore, take my advice as a suggestion but not a replacement for therapy.

Tip #1 : Be Prepared for the Exam

This advice seems obvious but is mentioned first due to its importance. Even if you apply all the other tips after this, being unprepared for an exam increases your probability of failing. Therefore, it can be a source of stress. Inversely, the more prepared you are, the more confident and less stressed you will feel.

Many of us did not learn the best ways to study during high school. Consequently, in an environment where academic demands are higher, our weaknesses become more apparent.

Some techniques that I found helpful were:

•       Pomodoro technique

•       Summarising difficult topics in simpler words

•       Making Mnemonics

•       Having a good study schedule and tracker.

Tip #2: Identify triggers that increase feelings of anxiousness

The feelings that come with exam anxiety are not only experienced on test day. Rather, it’s a buildup or in other cases, it comes in waves depending on how often you are exposed to triggers. For myself, I recognised my feelings of stress, negative self-talk and tightness in my throat increased in situations where I did not know the answers. Or the lecturer was moving too fast with a topic I did not understand well. So I was advised to use low-pressure situations to slowly get accustomed to not knowing the answers and being okay with that. These would be short quizzes online on a topic related to my course that I haven’t studied for. Your triggers may be different from mine or just isolated to examination day. Whichever, is true to you, act accordingly.

Tips #3: Calming techniques

Imagine, you are now in a position where you are very stressed and experiencing a lot of exam anxiety symptoms. What do you do? Here are some of the techniques I found helpful:

•       Deep breathing exercises

•       Listening to slow Lofi and classical music. Music may be distracting for some individuals, so an alternative is nature sounds such as rainfall, waves, fire crackling, etc. These can be easily found on YouTube.

•       Referring to something that puts you in a good mood. It can be a funny memory, singing, dancing, etc. If you are in an exam room, this exercise would have to be internalised.

Tip #4: Changing Self-perception

In my previous post, “Exam Anxiety: Confessions of a Struggling Med Student”, I mentioned how I placed too much of my self-value on academic performance. However, when I got to university and faced so many challenges and not seeing the As I’d wanted, I had to change my mindset. 

I am not my grades, awards, or achievements. I am me.

I define my identity.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend regarding how we measure our worth. We concluded that worth is intrinsic: you don’t work to gain value, and you can’t buy it. You wouldn’t consider a person with a learning or physical disability to be of low value due to their limitations. So why do we think of ourselves as worthless and have such low self-esteem when we don’t top the class, get a scholarship, or acquire the grade we wanted?

I have worth because I am a human being.

I chose to value how I treated others and took care of myself rather than demeaning myself over shortcomings.

Tip #5: Emotional Support system

Having someone or a group of people to encourage you when you’re down is so beneficial. Of course, there are times you have to be your own cheerleader, but everyone loves an extra boost. This support group can be family members, friends, or your study group. As long as they are people that you are comfortable being vulnerable about the anxiety you are feeling.

Tip #6: Seek counselling

I think this is the most important advice for persons experiencing severe anxiety. As mentioned earlier, your symptoms could be due to deeper issues that only a mental health professional is equipped to adequately address. I thought it best to make use of my university’s counselling service. I gained knowledge that helped me manage other external issues affecting my exam preparation. I can’t guarantee the first person you speak with will be the best person for you but continue to seek the necessary help.