Exams have always been used as a means of clearly and quickly categorizing individual’s knowledge and thus, according to some people’s thinking, define their abilities and possibilities for progressing to the next level, whether that is going to college or being accepted to a professional association or even being accepted for job retraining courses.

Exams have become a quick easy method of weeding out unsuitable candidates with little or no regard as to innate abilities or personality. Simply put, you have to know how to take exams and thus how to study effectively just to get to the starting post.

So why is it that some people are able to breeze through exams while others seem to lose all ability to recall the information required and to end up with less than acceptable results? Probably one of the most common reasons for disappointing exam results is stress.

Stress is very often misunderstood form the point a view of what it is, where it comes from and why it seems to have such a profound effect on exam performance. In this busy world it is a quite simple task to acquire stress from a great variety of sources which in fact may have nothing to do with studying for exams or taking exams. It just happens that the exam becomes the focus of the stress at the time. So why is it that taking exams is so connected with stress?

Well, when you become stressed your mind and body go into the’ fight or flight’ mode. When that happens there are a great number of physical and chemical changes that stat to affect many parts of your body. One of those changes is the production of cortisol, a stress hormone. And one of the many things that cortisol does is to enter your brain and modify certain cognitive functions which happen to be the ones that have a great influence over the mental processes of studying and taking exams. Your mind’s ability to focus is impaired. Your short term memory is hampered. And your rational thinking is reduced. As you can see all three of these are pretty vital functions when it comes to studying and taking exams. And even if you try to follow any types of ‘how to study’ books, this information also has a hard time getting absorbed and thus utilized properly.

So the two main things that have to be created in your mind are firstly a state of calm which allows your brain to work efficiently and, secondly, a clear plan for creating optimal study habits studying and indeed to make the act of writing an exam a calm rational process.

Some of the first steps may seem to be very obvious but are still ignored by very many students.

First, sleep for eight hours a night. Yes, you can and will make the time. Sleep deprivation causes havoc with your stress level.

Go to bed before 11p.m. The best quality of restorative sleep occurs before 2 a.m. You achieve nothing by working through the night Your rate of information absorption drops dramatically. Developing a strong schedule which makes a full night’s sleep is all important.

Eat a well balanced diet. Make sure you have breakfast which includes a small amount of protein.

Eat small regular meals to minimize sugar fluctuations.

Drink lots of water. Do not drink any sweetened drinks or any energy boosting drinks. They will almost always increase your stress level.

The most important step however is readjusting your mind set. Guided meditation mind training will allow you to focus your subconscious to the positive thinking required for exam study. By reducing your mind’s focus on negative outcomes – the ‘what if’s ‘ or ‘I don’t think I’ll make it’ type thinking – you can direct all that wasted energy into creating a positive focus.

This in turn allows you to develop a study plan where you are setting and reaching achievable intermediate goals which then lead to a clearer path of achieving the ultimate goal of an excellent exam result. In other words calm your mind.

Create a study plan and schedule. Draw up the plan and keep it in view as a visual reminder of your schedule. This then will start you in the right direction to begin to refocus your mind.

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