Think Less, Be More - Is this the Answer to Exam Nerves?
What do you do as a teacher when you see a bright, hardworking, student crack under the pressure of an exam? And, what do you do as a parent when that student comes home and tells you they had to leave the exam hall early as they started shaking and couldn’t write anything down on paper?
This is such a heart-breaking scenario, as you’ve seen them work so hard over a long period of time and try their hardest, but then struggle to perform to the best of their ability when it really counts.
Sadly, this type of situation is becoming more and more common as students are dealing with increased levels of pressure (often self-imposed) and not always knowing how to handle it. One student I worked with recently described his brain as “just not working”. He told me that he was in the middle of the exam and realised he couldn’t put anything down on paper and then started shaking. He had to leave mid-way through the exam, and was then very concerned that the same thing would happen again in the next one.
What Can Help?
As his parents approached me with just one day to go till his next exam, I also felt under pressure to find ways to help him. However, from experience, I knew that one of the best methods lay in helping him to find balance between his brain and his body. When extreme responses are being experienced, it can help to think of opposites - so whilst he was putting so much pressure on his brain, I asked him to think about his feet. We practised a relaxation exercise and a gentle breathing technique to help him feel calmer, and then I led him through a body scan with a strong focus on the feet and the feeling of being connected to the ground below.
He described the sensation initially as slightly weird as he’d never felt anything like that before, but went on to say how he then felt “really stable, strong and solid”, and “not stuck in his head anymore”.
For the rest of the session, we continued to work on other methods to help him feel calm in the exam and to visualise it all going well, and I was thrilled to receive a message of gratitude from his parents the next day to say that he had made it through both exams and was in a much better place.
How To Think Less and Be More?
In essence, when students go into panic mode and their body goes into an extreme fight or flight response, it really helps to move them from trying to think themselves into a solution, to being in their body and using somatic work to help calm and soothe their nerves so their brain can function again.
Here are 5 ways to help a student move out of their head and into their body:
Breathing Exercises - count the inhale and exhale, increase them steadily, or practise square breathing.
Body Scan - a very simple but highly effective method to focus the attention on each part of the body, one at a time
Use the Senses - a great exercise to help students to remain in the present moment and prevent ruminating on events in the past or worrying about events in the future
Hand massage - by squeezing parts of the hand whilst reading the exam paper, students can soothe their nerves whilst focusing on how best to respond to the questions in front of them
Anchor Technique - by having a calm and safe space to go to in their minds, and anchoring this into the body with a thumb and finger squeeze, students can instantly recall this feeling in their mind and body, whenever they need it
I hope this helps. Please do get in touch if you have any questions or would like to know more about any of these techniques, or how to help the students you live or work with.
Sending you my best wishes for a happy and healthy exam season!
