Tips for lessening test/exam anxiety

Anxious behaviour is very common among school or college students. This feeling is experienced during test or exams. Students face several new situations, challenges in educational sessions and find it difficult to cope with different fears and worries related to exams.

Anxiety can adversely impact on thinking of these innocent students. They perceive the fear or danger in exam situation. Thinking about the situation makes them more worried and tense.

Anxiety can also lead to physical symptoms such as sleeplessness, diarrhoea, stomach aches and headaches (sometimes referred to as somatic complaints). Other symptoms may include irritability, difficulty in concentrating and tiredness.

As it is well understood the preparing for exam is quite stressful and students are under full pressure to score good marks. Majority of students feel some level of anxiety therefore it is important to learn to combat that anxiety. There are some useful tips to lessen exam anxiety.

Academic counsellors advocate that students must develop good study habits and strategies, manage time, organize material to be studied and learned, review their past performance on tests to improve and learn from experience.

It is advised to stay prepared for test and be confident. Students must have proper sleep, good eating habits and do exercise regularly to remain fit for exams.

While appearing in exams, students must read the directions carefully, calculate their test taking time, change positions to help themselves relaxed, if question is tough then skip the question and move ahead. They must not get panic otherwise it will effect on their performance.

It is well experienced that exam anxiety can be a devastating scenario for students and it may result in harmful consequences on their academic performance and future career. They must adopt relaxation techniques prior to exam to counter exam anxiety.