How To Manage Exam Stress - A Detailed Guide

This guide is designed to help you understand: 

1). What exam stress is 

2). How you can view exam stress

3). What you can do about exam stress

What is exam stress? 

Without getting into too much unnecessary detail I reckon the definition below will suffice for the purpose of this guide. 

Exam stress is a feeling of being under abnormal pressure and fearing your exams are going to go badly. As a result, you may feel influencing the outcome of your exams is beyond your control. This feeling is created by hormones and chemicals released in the body as a consequence of an external factor (exams) which can also cause other negative mental and physical symptoms.

(Source: I pulled together this definition together from how stress is talked about on www.psychologytoday.com) 

How to view exam stress? 

Understand the Yerkes Dodson Law. 

This is a ‘law’ named after US psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson who published an article in the Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychologyin 1908 on the ‘Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit-formation’.

All you need to know is this: 

The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental ‘arousal’, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases.

Side note: replace the broad term ‘arousal’ with the word stress and you have something which makes sense within the context of this article.

Graph showing the Yerkes Dodson Law bell curve

Basically, exam stress is a good thing, up to the point where it fosters focused performance, but too much of it can cause overwhelm and decreased performance. 

Without stress we have little pushing us into action. In fact, we can actually end up becoming super stressed out by doing nothing constructive! When stress kicks in and helps us pull off that deadline we thought was a lost cause it becomes beneficial. But when stress results in negative symptoms such as insomnia, poor concentration and an impaired ability to do the daily things we normally do, we know we need to reign it back under control. 

Now that we’ve established stress isn’t something to be ignored but that it should be recongised, carefully managed, and then used to our advantage, here’s what you can do…

What you can do about Exam Stress….

Everyone experiences stress differently and, because of this, a different solution or combination of solutions are necessary. Below I’ve listed out a load which you can DJ and remix into your own stress relieving formula. 

Before you implement any of them I recommend you take the following 3 step approach when you feel you need to recalibrate your stress levels: 

• Perspective - recognise you need to do something to manage your stress. Do this by pausing, taking a time out or stepping away from what you are currently doing. This should set you up for the next step. 

• Planning - allocate time to decide what you’re going to do to manage your stress. This plan should include specific activities. 

• Routine- you then need to slot these activities into your daily routine so that they act to recalibrate your stress levels at regular intervals in order to maintain optimum performance throughout the day and into the future. 

Here are some activities you can do to manage your exam stress levels. Remember to adopt and remix as you see fit! 

Breathe

It’s the simplest activity on this list yet it’s probably the best initial go-to in order to gain some perspective on a situation. Consciously practice making this part of how you approach stressful situations. Also, breathe from the belly, not the chest. By letting your diaphragm contract downwards a greater pressure imbalance between the space inside your chest and the external environment is created. The result: more good sweet air is going to come rushing to your aid. In an exam situation controlling your breathing is going to help recall from your memory and think more clearly because more oxygen improves brain and body functions. 

Inner Circle Huddle Visualisation Technique

This is a psychological technique which I often use when faced with any kind of stressful situation. It involves listing the few things which really matter to you in life (people, ideas, activities, experiences etc.) But only enough to count on two hands (roughly the size of a starting 11 footie team - hence the 'inner circle huddle' name I made up). By stripping away all the inessential fluff and rubbish you’re able to refocus your attention on what’s truly important in life. All of the sudden a stressful exam situation appears a lot smaller and less intimidating. 

Yes, I’ve just made this technique up, but I’m pretty sure some of its effectiveness is rooted in Professor Robin Dunbar’s theory of 150 connections being the maximum number of quality relationships any human can sustain. The internet and smartphones encourage us to take on more and more ‘stuff’ in our lives (think relationships, media and activities) more so than we ever have done before. This can be a blessing and a curse depending on how these opportunities are managed. Having a psychological technique in your locker to simplify life and identify what truly matters to you can really help bring some clarity to a stressful situation. 

Win Back Time

Attention. Is. The. New. Global. Currency. Yes, many things which occupy a lot of our time (think smartphones and all the stuff we can do on them) though they might be ‘free’ actually cost us dearly in the form of the time they occupy which could be used to gain some perspective, form our plans and execute our routines. 

I’d encourage you to adopt this mindset that whenever you’re spending time on anything within the digital attention economy. Equate the digital time you spend to cold hard cash. If you’re not sure how much your time is worth, as a general rule, I’d say the younger you are the more valuable it is. This might be counterintuitive, you’re probably thinking the CEO of some big company definitely charges more for their time than you could. The counter argument to this would be that the time a young person has to allow investments of time to compound and grow is far greater than any crusty old CEO! Want a ballpark estimate of how much your time is worth? Just look at the wealth some of the key players within the attention economy such as Google and Facebook have been able to build by making your time and preferences their product. Once you make this mindset shift (and that’s what it is, you either believe it or you don’t) you have much more time to keep an eye on your stress levels and start using them to your advantage.

If you’re finding it hard to make this psychological shift and need some more actionable steps to get ahold of your time try some of these time saving apps which can help reduce random time-wasting on smartphones and the internet: 

• Hold App

• Cold Turkey

• Freedom

Digital Minimalism

I recently read ‘Digital Minimalism’ By Cal Newport and refer to it daily to help guide my technology use. This is a slight continuation of the point just made but I thought I’d include it as it’s the best holistic philosophy I’ve come across to become more in control of your time in a digitally dominated world.  Here’s a summary of what the book aims to provide: 

A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimised actives that strongly support things you value and then happily miss out on everything else. 

In terms of exam stress, Digital Minimalism can help create time for you to gain some perspective on your exam challenges, create a plan to address them and carry out the tasks and activities required to make headway.

Just a heads up, I’m currently working on forming my own philosophy of technology use to help students working with The Exam Coach. 

Control your vibe

This one’s a bit ‘vibesy' but I believe in it wholeheartedly. If you’re spending time with stressed out people their behaviour will eventually rub off on you. Whether it’s the night before the exam and you’re lending an ear to a friend stressing because they’ve done no work, or if you’re standing next to someone frantically trying to take a guess at what questions might come up immediately before you enter an exam. Stay clear and direct them to this blog post.👍 It does nothing but tip you over the wrong side of the Yerkes-Dodson bell curve. 

Spend time in nature

This one’s just true. There have been huge studies published on the benefits of experiencing the great outdoors. Drop what you’re doing and get outside. 

Take the dog(s) with you

If you’ve watched any of my Snapchat or Instagram stories you’re bound to have caught a glimpse of the Revision Retrievers. Yes, that is a dog breed 😉. Not only do they nag you to do the point made above more often but you can learn a lot from them too…There’s good reason they’re happy 99% of the time, they appreciate the small things in life and focus on the stuff that matters - food, sleep and belly rubs. 

Fear setting

I’ve used this tool from Tim Ferriss’ blog a number of times to make some important choices. I also believe it can be used as an exam stress management tool! The reason for this is because it provides a great framework for assessing the consequences of what’s stressing you out about exams from many different perspectives. Here’s a brief run through of a version I’ve adapted for students taking exams: 

1. Define the worst possible outcome

2. What steps could you take to repair the damage? 

3. What are the benefits of more probable scenarios? 

4. If you were kicked out of school today how could you get back on the same career track if you absolutely had to? 

5. What are you putting off out of fear? 

6. What is postponing action costing you? 

7. What are you waiting for? 

When we write down our fears and think about what we could do to address them if they did occur, we gain the perspective and power to do something about them. 

Music

Consciously using music as a stress management tool is something I’ve been testing recently. Previously I would just whack on a few bangers and that would be that. Now I’m experimenting with genres such as as Lo-Fi or jazz instrumentals for my hit of lyric-less relaxing music. Other times I’m listening to music where the lyrics act as a reminder of the simplicity (American Country) or tougher sides (London Grime) of life.  All of these have stress relieving properties by reminding us of alternative perspectives of the world outside our own. See yourself within the broader context of the world and your problems will appear much smaller. 

Use the Swish visualisation technique

This is a technique I learned when I attended one of Tony Robbins' Unleash The Power Within seminars back in 2015. Without thinking this alone will make everything better (nothing changes unless you actually do something about it), the swish visualisation technique has certainly helped adopt a more positive outlook on a challenging task.

Here’s a modified and simplified version I often use to get myself into a positive frame of mind:

1. Allow the stressful/negative feeling/image to fill your mind (eg. You panicking in an exam)

2. In the bottom right hand corner of the image create a smaller image of the positive outcome you’d like to achieve (eg. You cruising through an exam paper with ease)

3. Make the positive image bigger and bigger so it covers the negative image, whilst the positive image grows its colours become more vivid and bold whilst the negative image becomes darker and hazier

4. Repeat this process of the positive image expanding or 'swishing’ to cover the negative image 2-3 times

This isn’t a solution in and of itself but it can help get concentrate your focus on a positive goal. I liken it to walking along a precipice on a rock face. The more you’re looking down the more likely you are to fall off. Look forward, focus on the goal and the end point.

To summarise….

Get into the habit of checking in on your stress levels, gaining some perspective on them, planning and integrating some of the exercises and techniques above into your daily schedule. If you can do this, you’ll be in a far stronger position to go through your exams with the optimal level of stress gently pushing you to perform your best.

Want to listen to some more content about exam stress and anxiety? Try these podcast episodes…

Pressure Is The Tool For Growth (Ep. 20) 

Perspective And Pressure (Ep. 118)

Techniques For Managing Exam Stress and Anxiety (ep. 216)

How Do I Become Motivated For Exams?

I asked an open ended question on my Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp stories last week. The question was: 

“What’s the most difficult thing about your exams?” 

Here are some of the responses I received:

In fact, the vast majority of responses were similar to the screenshots above. A handful of people mentioned subject specific issues but it’s interesting how our biggest challenges relate to our general approach to studying.

In this article, I’m going to share with you the do’s and donts of creating consistent motivation to study for your exams. I’ll also lay out a handy routine you can use to find motivation to study when you have none. Let’s handle exam stress in another post. 👍

What is motivation? 

I find having a clear way to think about abstract concepts helps me audit my own behaviour more accurately. Once we figure out what’s happening, we can make changes that work.  Let’s define what motivation is and its different forms. 

A simple way of defining motivation is “a reason for behaving a certain way”

When someone says “I just have no motivation to revise”. Really what they’re saying is, “I have no compelling reasons to revise” (yet). 😉

Reasons come in different forms. In his book‘Drive’ Daniel Pink defines two types of motivation: 

• Intrinsic motivation: this is motivation to perform an activity for its own sake and personal satisfaction

• Extrinsic motivation: this is when we’re motivated to earn a material reward or avoid punishment 

Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have their uses. That said, Pink argues intrinsic motivation tends to be the more durable, sustainable and, therefore, more effective of the two. With this distinction in mind here are two videos which recommend some tactics you should and should not use to motivate yourself to study for exams.

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5 Ways To Creative MASIVE Motivation To Revise

Control the primary source of procrastination

Procrastination is when we put off doing what we need to do in place of something less important or urgent. It’s going to be difficult to motivate yourself to take action on difficult tasks if there are various easier things to do at your fingertips. The smartphone is one of the primary outlets for procrastination in most people’s lives, so it makes sense to start by getting in control of this. 

The best way I’ve found of doing this requires two separate things to happen. 

1. Develop a fundamental understanding of how the online attention economy works on our smartphones. In short, this is an understanding that almost every app on our smartphones makes money through gaining and keeping our attention. Some apps need it more than others. For example, apps which make money through advertising. 

You must understand that there is a conflict of interest between an app’s need to provide a service which people find useful, versus the incentive to increase their stock price value by acquiring a larger slice of our daily attention quota. Eventually, the objective utility of new notifications and features introduced by the app is superseded by their need for your constant attention. To mask this, companies will exploit psychological biases common to every human being to make them feel like a need is being met when they use the app. They form habit loops fuelled by the feel good chemical - ‘dopamine’. Examples of psychological biases often exploited can be broadly described as FOMO, social approval bias, competitive gamification, and our fascination with the new and unknown (we develop this as babies and it persists throughout our lives).

2. Take action by changing the push notification settings on every app on your phone. You don’t need them. Go to the app when you want to, not when that app ’thinks’ it has something worth notifying you of. For anything urgent, use the phone for its original purpose - make a phone call! This isn’t the perfect solve (I’m still working on this). But it’s a great start to injecting more time and headspace into your day. 

How to be notification free (check that home screen 🙌) makes me feel Zen every time I look at it: 

Think Long term

Here’s a black line representing an average female lifespan in the UK (81 years). The dark green line which bisects it represents the amount of time you spend revising within the context of your whole life. It’s miniscule.

The horizontal black line is 10cm long. The vertical green line is 1mm which is 1% of the line.

Here are my workings:

The majority of public examinations are taken between the ages of 13 to 22. That’s 9 years of education.

Let’s say you have to revise every year. This isn’t strictly true as you and I both know we are not taking exams which go on our public record year in year out. But let’s overestimate anyway.

Total hours available between age 13-22: 

24 hours in day x 365 a year x 9 years = 78,840 hours

Total hours spent revising:

8 hours x 90 days x 9 years = 6480 hours

• I’ve estimated 90 days, the 90 days before exams is roughly when the majority of people will start lifting a finger to think about getting down to some proper exam revision. 8 hours per day is a standard working day, that’s definitely an overestimation, but let’s stick with it, I want to emphasise how small this upfront ‘revision investment’ actually is.

Percentage of time spent revising between the age of 13-22:

6480 as a percentage of 78,840 = 8% of your time

This lowers to 0.9% when placed within the context of the average female human life span in the UK - 81 years. I’ve rounded this up to 1% in the diagram above.

That’s a titchy upfront investment whichever way you look at it, even if you do consider 13-22 your golden years when you should be doing nothing but leisure activities!

Side note:

• I’ve only shown my workings for revision specifically as many students can find the motivation to attend school and get homework done to reasonable standard. After all, there is a punishment and reward system in place to motivate students to attend school and get their homework done. Revision, on the other hand, is extra work, voluntary work. It’s particularly difficult to motivate yourself for this because there are no short term punishments or rewards.

To summarise, a decent set of exam results is a worthwhile investment which will have almost 60 years to compound and deliver return on investment in the form of a domino effect of opportunities. Internalise the workings above and let it drive you.

Tip: if you’ve ever been inside the walls of a sales or financial investment firm, it’s likely you will have seen numbers written where everyone can see them. These are their targets. Put the numbers I’ve laid out above where you can see them so you can remember your investment and the long term rationale behind it!

Remind Yourself of 'The Rules' Daily (these don’t only apply to exams) 

Don’t worry if you’re saying to yourself “What? I didn’t know ‘The Rules’ existed”.

You don’t know about them because I’ve just made them up.

The three rules below are what I believe to be true. I believe them not because they work each and every time they’re adhered to. I believe them because I know they will provide consistency and resilience required to be successful over the long term. Internalise these rules for your exams too.

The Rules: 

• Success is never handed to you, you have to work hard for it 

• High quality regular practice delivers improved results 

• Do the little things right daily and they will add up to something big

“Success is like building a wall, brick by brick” - Will Smith 

Tip: Type ‘The Rules’ down on your phone, put them somewhere they’re easily accessible. They’ll put you right when you need them most.

Gather some proper perspective

Every morning you should be recalibrating your perspective on the opportunities you have. Social media can cause our expectations and reality to become out of sync. We can often find ourselves comparing our whole lives (the boring bits and the best bits) with the carefully curated, edited and filtered ‘highlights’ of other people’s lives available to see over the internet. Rarely do we flip the script and think about how grateful we are for what we already have. We tend to compare upwards rather than downwards, if that makes sense.

There are two ways I’ve found to successfully do this: 

1. Regularly you remind yourself of how lucky you are to be alive. I know this sounds a bit fluffy but it’s just kinda true…You and I are both incredibly fortunate to be here. So grab the opportunity with both hands and give it everything you’ve got.

My former boss, Gary Vaynerchuk, is constantly reminding people of this by quoting the chances of being born - 400 trillion to one! I don't know the exact chances of being born but that number sounds about right…

2. Understand that the best time to be alive in the whole of human history is now

• In the past, people have had it way harder than you and I. I’m not saying people’s lives today are easy or the perfect situation. I’m just saying that so many things we take for granted which would be overwhelmingly appreciated by previous generations. I’m talking about the basic stuff (running water, decent healthcare, a roof over our heads) and the big stuff (law and order, equality of opportunity, freedom).

Take responsibility for the opportunities you have presented to you and make it so that you can afford to hand out plenty of opportunities as you mature within society. What you take for granted is someone else’s hopes and dreams.

- ☝️I’ve just made that up but you can take it as an Exam Coach Quote if you want! 😂

Use a regret minimisation framework 

Here’s a clip of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, a trillion dollar company, explaining what this is: 

Within the context of exams, I see this as looking back on your life aged 80 and noticing how a few decisions during your teenage years played a significant role in dictating the trajectory of the rest of your life. 

Does this mean you are doomed if you don’t do well in school? No, of course not. There a many examples of people who have become successful (in whatever way you want to define it) without getting great exam results. I guess Sir Richard Branson is the poster boy for this. But let’s look at the facts instead of the media coverage for a minute. There’s only one Richard Branson and probably a handful of other people like him who have succeeded  in spite of not taking advantage of the education system in the form of getting a solid set of exam results. 

There are millions of people in this country and over the world who earn a decent living wage and lead happy and fulfilled lives because of the strong foundation they built in school. Equally, there are also millions stuck in dead end, soul sucking jobs, because they had no options when they came out of education. The thing is, we don’t hear about these stories, after all they are not extraordinary and, for that reason, not newsworthy. Remember to see the wood for the trees. Be ambitious, believe in yourself but take calculated risks. I think Sir Richard would agree with this.

So there you have it, 5 ways to motivate yourself for exams, let’s look at the other side of the coin for a minute….

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5 Ways NOT To Motivate Yourself For Exams

Don’t use time studied for as a source of motivation and positive reinforcement

Being motivated by the time sat at your desk “revising” is going to give you a false sense of progress. Time studied for is a vanity metric. It’s something students who don’t understand what effective revision is really about use to size themselves up against other average students like them…Harsh, but true. 

You know as well as I do some of that time was spent on your smartphone or gazing out the window thinking about pizza. This isn’t harsh, it’s just true and I’m also guilty of this. 😉

Be motivated by working through the syllabus and its topics as quickly and effectively as possible whilst also gradually building up your ability to recall the information unassisted through regular self testing. 

Understand that monetary rewards from parents ARE not a long term motivator

We all know this happens, you get that friend who says she's getting paid a couple of stacks dependent on the grades she gets. £100 for an A, £50 for a B….Heck, some people I know were paid a small fortune for achieving a poor grade! 

But, here’s the thing, according to how motivation actually works, awarding money for the completion of a task is a form of extrinsic motivation- it’s an external reward. Pink tells us “extrinsic motivation can be effective over the short term in encouraging mechanical tasks and compliance.” So if your parents are paying you at the end of every day of revision, then maybe this would work. But this doesn’t happen, parents pay up on results day, long after the days of revision have passed.

As a motivational tactic, it doesn’t make sense to create financial incentives to achieve good exam results.

The bottom line is, don’t do it for the money, it will undermine your intrinsic motivation.

Don’t be motivated by the need to impress anyone, this includes your parents

As much as possible you want to find your own reasons for doing well…Doing things because we find personal growth and meaning in them is what helps us push through tough times.

Reacting because of what other people might think about your success or failure should be a lot lower down on your motivational priorities. 

Yep, wanting to make your parents proud could be a motivational factor, but not the primary one. Ultimately, you gotta want to do it for you. 

Don’t be motivated by fear 

Fear can be a great long term motivator. Though, for exam motivation, I’d recommend against it. The reason for this is a by-product of using fear as a motivational source can be stress and anxiety. These two things will eventually take their toll on your revision, ability to perform in the exam room, and your final grades. 

Become motivated by the skills exams can build in you and overcoming the day to day challenges. 

Seeing the broader purpose of using the exam experience to put yourself in a stronger position to take opportunities in the future is a big part of this. 

Focus on what you could win, not what you’re gonna lose if things don’t go to plan.

Don’t compare yourself to the people at your school

The world’s a way bigger place that the 9, 16, 30 people in your Chemistry class on Tuesday mornings. If I’m honest, I didn’t fully appreciate this when I was at school and had to have my perspective corrected on many occasions (mainly by my parents when I went home to see them on the weekends). 

If you’re currently graded at the top or the bottom of the class, it doesn’t matter. Run your own race, looking around at what other people are doing  the whole time is not going to do you any good, you’ll have less time to focus on what you’re doing and how you can improve. 

If you’re streaks ahead of everyone, find a way to push on and know that there is probably someone out there who makes you look like a dunce. Likewise, if you’re struggling along at the bottom of the class, know that there are many people who wish they understood half as much as you currently do about the subject. Take pride in that as a platform to build on. As Will Smith says ‘build your success. brick by brick’.

A bit of healthy competition is good, but do it with an appreciation of the true scale of how many people there are in the world and the fact we all progress at different speeds.

Focus on your own improvement, think big picture and never stop trying to get better and learn.

Summary

Ok…The above section runs through some high-level do’s and donts of exam motivation with the occasional actionable thing you can do to reduce the chances of procrastination and increase the chances for motivated action. 

You also need something to fall back on when you need to work but you just can’t find the motivation to do so in that moment. You need a directive, a recipe, a system, a step-by-step series of actions you take to turn the motivational tide. 

Here’s my recommendation…

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A 7 step process to beat procrastination - the enemy of motivation

This process is a routine you can follow whenever you feel totally unmotivated to get down to work. We all know what this feels like. You’d rather do anything than open a book and begin trying to understand the information in front of you. You’re picking up and putting down your phone every 20 seconds, watching any video on YouTube which looks half interesting or taking way longer than necessary to find a decent banger of a tune on your playlist.

Step 1

• Break the pattern of procrastination. The moment you start doing something similar to what I’ve described above, leave your study space as soon as possible.

• This seems counterintuitive and like you’re giving up or wasting even more time, but the priority here is to break the pattern of repetitive procrastination.

Step 2

• Get outside, take a 10 minute walk, do some light exercise. My go to is a walk/light jog with my dogs (the revision retrievers).

• This will help clear you head, gather some perspective on your priorities and help you relax.

The LADS!

Step 3

• Revisit your desk. Set a timer for 25 minutes on your smartphone. Use the Pomodoro technique.

Step 4

• Decide on one thing to do. It could be to revise a specific topic or even a specific couple of pages from your revision guide. The important thing here is to be specific - ONE THING.

Step 5

• Reset to neutral. Clear your desk of everything apart from the things you absolutely need to achieve this one task. Your smartphone is no longer a smartphone, it’s a timer. Set it to airplane mode.

Step 6

• Get down to work. Set low expectations, it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand everything. Just start taking some notes, verbalising the information in your head and self testing. Look at the information, cover it up, write out what you remember, check it.

• This is basic stuff  but it will help get the revision ball rolling.

Step 7

• After 25 minutes is up and if you’re feeling your momentum wane take a 5-10 minute break.

• You could give yourself a small reward like a piece of choccy, a lil’ gaming sesh or watching a video of your favourite vlogger. That said, these can so easily turn into marathon breaks.

• Try to make your breaks periods of time where you’re consciously putting yourself in a great position for your next revision session. For example, rehydrating, getting outside, looking at or reading something which motivates you to give it your all.

• If you’re able to power through the 25 minute mark and continue studying - do it! Revision is all about momentum, that is, sustaining it when you have it and taking a break when you don’t.

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To finish off this blog post here’s some more content on motivation pulled from the depths of The Exam Coach archives: 

• Snapchat story: My Motivation Wall

• Podcast: How I Motivated Myself For Exams (Ep. 214)

If you found this post useful, share it with anyone you think might benefit from it.👇

I’m checking out. 🤙