5 Ways to Manage Your Stress During Exam Season

Everyone wants to do well in exams, but that pressure can sometimes lead to side effects like intense anxiety, nerves, and stress. Annoyingly, this can make it even more difficult to do well. So, how can you manage stress during exam season?

Luckily, there are lots of ways to effectively manage your stress during your exams. From learning how to organise your time successfully to practising mindfulness, these are our top tips for staying calm and collected.

How to Manage Stress During Exam Season

1. Take Breaks

During exam season, it can seem like you can’t even afford to take a break from revision. But this tactic is probably doing you more harm than good.

Your brain doesn’t work effectively unless it takes regular breaks. In fact, taking regular short breaks from your revision could actually help your brain process that information faster, essentially leading to better revision.

If you’ve created a study plan to keep you on track with revision during exam season, leave lots of gaps for you to take breaks. Or, you could work using the Pomodoro method, which allows for breaks every 20-25 minutes of work.

During your breaks, give your eyes a rest from a laptop or tablet screen (if you’re using one) and consider doing some stretching. Regular movement will stop you from getting too stiff from sitting down for a long time, and also improve your focus.

2. Try Deep Breathing

There are lots of breathing exercises you can do for stress relief. Some of these exercises are even known to reduce feelings of anxiety and nervousness, leaving you more clear-headed.

One of the most popular is the 4-7-8 method.

1. Breathe in through your nose, into your belly, for a count of 4.
2. Hold your breath for a count of 7.
3. Breathe out through your mouth with a “whoosh” sound for a count of 8.

There’s some evidence that continuing this exercise for a few minutes can, in effect, ‘reset’ your nervous system. It will make you feel calmer and more in control, making it a useful exercise for you immediately before you begin your exam.

If you start to get panicked about a particular question in your exam (it’s always the one thing that you haven’t reviewed for a while that pops up), you could also run through this breathing exercise in the exam hall for a few rounds.

3. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

A lot of stress can come from the fact that you’re comparing yourself to other people in your class. For example, you might be annoyed that you’re not as good at a subject as a friend, or you struggled during an exam when everyone else thought it was easy.

During the pressures of an exam season, it’s normal to compare yourself to other people. Most people will get these kinds of thoughts – even if they say they don’t.

While these thoughts might appear time-to-time, try not to give in to them. Instead, you could try focusing on your own achievements, without comparing these to other people. What are you proud of yourself for doing?

4. Get Into a Routine

A routine can help you feel less stressed by effectively organising your time between work and relaxing. It’ll also keep you focused on your goals – you’re less likely to pass over a study session in favour of coffee with a friend if you make a habit of it.

Your regular study routine should include periods of work, breaks, and ways of keeping your body and mind healthy during this stressful time. For example, try to incorporate exercise into your routine, as this can act as a natural stress-reduction process. Although it’s challenging to add another habit into a routine when you’re already focused on studies, exercise can give your brain a break – or, you could use a run to review concepts or listen to a podcast on a subject you need to revise.

If you work well with a organisation system, you could plan your study timetable on a tool like Notion.

5. Talk to Someone

Though it might feel like you need to be alone to totally focus on your studies, it’s also not good to close yourself off completely to the outside world. So, be wary of doing 24-hour studyathons where you lock yourself in your dorm room or in a quiet part of the library.

Instead, if you find it helpful to be around other people while studying, you might organise study sessions where you revise with a group of friends. This way, you can help each other with your weak areas and keep each other accountable for your progress.

Regularly seeing other people is also a good way to manage stress during exam season. So, a group study session could end with a movie night or a dinner out, giving you a much-needed break from your studies and some important social time.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, stress is a natural part of exam season. Unless you’re absolutely on top of all your revision, it’s unlikely that you’re ever going to be completely relaxed about an exam.

However, the above tips should help you manage your stress going into exam season. Remember, breathing exercises can also be used during your exam!

If your stress and anxiety are starting to drastically affect your studies and your friendships, there is help out there. Check out our article on Mental Health Support at University.

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