How To Deal with Last-Minute Exam Stress😶‍🌫️

Last Sunday morning I woke up, frantically freaking out over a HUGE test that I was due to give that day. Not only was the paper pattern completely new for me, but it also included big words like "negative marking" and "Scholars Zone" and "IQ-based questions".. On top of that, the night before the exam, one of my friends told me that he had attended the mock tests, and both of them were very time-consuming. Now, this new piece of unwanted information sent my overthinking mind into a full-fledged panic attack. However, surprisingly enough, the next day, I ended up writing an amazing test - and that too, despite the waves of stress and panic undulating in my head.

Whenever we prepare for something big and important to us, our brains unconsciously start skipping the tape again and again to the worst-imaginable scenarios. We worry about every insignificant detail which most times, is beyond and our control and won't even matter in the long run. But, what if I told you that is there a way that we can use that stress to fuel us and prevent the great panic-apocalypse in our head?

Step 1: Calm Down

I've heard so many people admit - "I'm not a good test-taker. I get too nervous and forget the things I know." On top of that, I've so many friends who have literally gotten sick with worry and thrown up the morning of the exam.

So, the question arises: How do you deal with this type of brain-choking stress?

First things first, no matter how less you have studied the night before the exam, you need to ensure that you get proper sleep. There are so many exams that I've messed up simply because I was sleepy during the paper. But for those who cannot sleep and end up calling their friends at 4:20 AM to ask them how to sleep - the best technique is to accept the fact that if you couldn't do much in the past few days while prepping for the paper, then there is only so much you can do now - mere hours before the paper (it's kind of harsh, but true). Whenever I'm caught in a chokehold of stress, I find it helpful to just leave everything and spend that time with my friends and family or go for a run. This not only helps me get out of my head and stop with the incessant overthinking, but also helps me to focus much better on the material rather than the worst-case scenario during my next study-session.

Step 2: Don't Focus on the Parts You Don't Know

There are so many times when hours before the exam, we realise that there was an entire topic that we missed. In that case, what most of us do is drop everything else and focus on learning that part alone. What that leads to is a panicked student who only remembers half of all the topics he studied because the time he should have utilised in revising what he had studied, he spent learning that one new topic - and that too, not properly. This is probably the worst thing you can do when such a situation arises.

From my experience, there is always that one topic you never really paid much attention to and suddenly remembered about its existence hours before the exam. But, instead of diverting your entire focus on it, stick to your initial plan. Revise the topics which you have done, and when you get time, instead of reading the material which you skipped - which in most cases our panicked brains our unable to do - watch a YouTube video on it. Locigally speaking, if you forgot about the topic then it probably isn't very important. But then again, when your brain starts thinking irrationally and jumping to worst-case scenarios, then there are less chances of you sitting down and calmly reading the material so watching a YouTube video on it two-three times is the best strategy which has helped me countless times. Furthermore, the day of the paper, it's always good to get a brief summary of all the important pointers of that topic from friends who have studied it.

"Why worry? If you've done the very best you can, worrying won't make it better." - Walt Disney

Getting rid of exam stress is something which usually comes with experience, but then again, no one ever gets truly rid of it. However, it is up to you whether you want to let that stress choke you, or fuel you into doing better the next time. For now, the only thing that you can do is trust the process, and most importantly, trust yourself, because the moment you start doing that, half of your exam is already taken care of.