Handling Anxiety Before Your Exam In College 

It is normal to feel nervous before an exam but having that feeling of anxiety, worry, and self-doubt often leads to not performing well during the actual test. Anxiety can hit anybody, and its effect may vary from one person to another. Some students might be able to handle it well, but there are others who fail to adapt and end up experiencing its negative effect at the worst possible time. 

Though you cannot totally remove anxiety, there are ways wherein you can reduce its effect, helping you perform better on your examination day. Here are some tips on how you can handle anxiety before your exam.

Find Which Techniques Work For You 

The more you are well prepared for your exam, the less worry you will feel. There are different study techniques that you can try to see what works for you. The goal here is to find something that would be able to help you absorb more information. There is no point reading your textbook for hours and ending up not remembering anything.

Prepare In Advance

Some people might argue that studying a day before the exam is the best way as everything you have learned is still fresh in your mind. But the problem with this technique is it is only applicable if you are dealing with a single topic. Once you need to learn more is when things start to get confusing. Rather than trying to cram everything in one single sitting, why not try studying earlier so that you can spread the information load to something more manageable. It would allow you to retain that information better.

Create A Consistent Routine

It would be nice to create a particular pretest routine that can help reduce your stress and help you relax before the exam. Find something that suits you and try to do this every time you take an exam. Anxiety attacks happen when you are trying to do something with which you are not familiar. By creating a routine, what you are doing here is you are trying to psyche yourself and make your mind think that what you will be doing is just a regular thing. 

Do Some Relaxing Activities 

It helps if you can learn how to do relaxing exercises before and during the exam. There are certain ways to do this, like learning how to breathe or knowing how you can relax your muscles and remove tension. Think about the simple things that allow your physical state to relax. The more relaxed your body and mind are, the better chance that you will perform well in your test.

Create A Healthy Lifestyle

Some students end up forgetting to eat because they are too busy trying to study. But, your mind needs the energy to function properly, and food is your mind’s fuel. Make sure that you eat and drink plenty of water prior to taking the exam. As much as possible, try avoiding caffeinated drinks as caffeine can trigger your anxiety. Avoid sugary drinks as well as it causes fluctuations in your blood sugar level. The sudden drop causes nervousness and anxiety, which is what you are trying to avoid.

Get Some Good Night’s Rest

It is one reason why you should try studying earlier. It would allow you to get complete sleep before the exam and help energize and recharge your body ready for the next day. Your body needs at least 8 hours of sleep to recover fully; hence if you can do this before taking the exam, your body would be physically prepared to tackle the activity.

Consult With Your Professor

There are times that no matter how hard you study, you just could not understand a certain topic. If this is the case, then you could always approach your professor and ask for their help. Your professors will be more than willing to assist you, not to mention it would be a plus for you since they would know that you are exerting an effort to learn. The more you can master your exam, the easier it would become. 

So you see, the key to handling anxiety when taking an exam is to do things that would help you relax and feel less nervous. You can never take away all of it. What you are just doing is keeping it at a level where it can help you sharpen your mind and focus your attention.