How to Avoid Panic Attacks During Exams?

Panicking is not limited to students alone; people panic everywhere. People panic when they speak in public, or when they are making presentations when making sales calls or even during exams. Fear seems to manifest the worst at the most defining moments of our lives, such as during exams or any other important event.

This editorial shall elaborate on reasons behind the students’ panicking before and after they take their exams and how to prevent it.

Pressure Causes Panic During Exams

It is Pressure that often causes anxiety during exams or tests. This Pressure often unhinges people. It is such a powerful emotional feeling that even the best students often are victims of it.

Explicitly referring to exam panic, the Pressure that students face during exams generally comes from two places:

1). Pressure from Society, Our Peers, or Our Family

This form of Pressure is among the most common types of Pressure. Students get an unreasonable fear of not being able to meet the expectations of society, their peers as well as their family members. These expectations become too burdensome to your mind, which makes it run into overdrive.

However, parental Pressure is a global problem as bout 68% of people in China are of the view that Chinese parents subject their children to too much Pressure to become successful in their academics.

The same sentiment is shared by 42% of Kenyans as well as 44% from India, who feels that parents subject their children to excessive Pressure as regards their academics. Such pressures can be disastrous as in the case of Madhya Pradesh in India, where over 4,700 killed themselves from the period of 2005 down to 2014.

The majority did so because they had not been able to handle their academic pressures. 

2). Internal Pressure due to Societal Stereotypes

A research recently proved that a group of girls had performed very poorly in the math subject. This happened because they had been reminded about the stereotype that “girls are generally bad at Math.” however, without any form of stereotypical reminder, the girls had performed excellently in a similar assessment in Math.

With exam pressures and its causes put into proper perspective, exam candidates must know how to curb this scourge of exam panic. The following are effective ways to prevent your exam panicking from crippling your chances of success at any review.

1). Work at Improving Your Self-esteem

If you are tormented by negative self-esteem or a pretty bad stereotype about your inabilities, you need to learn how to get rid of that thought out of your mind. You should look for your most substantial capabilities and other bright spots within your life. 

“You are always more powerful than you think“.

 As human beings, there is a certain tendency to see more of our failures than our successes. So, it is, however, a great idea to get all your strengths/qualities written down somewhere that it can be easily seen. According to psychologists, when you continuously see this, your abilities get reinforced into your mind.

2). Improve your Efficiency

When you are looking to take an exam, you should find examples from other people – either your seniors or peers – that are the same to you that have done pretty well in the corresponding exam that you will be taking. If these people can become successful in the review, then you, too, can become successful at the exam.

If you think this way and prepare appropriately for the exams, your self-efficacy will be improved. Similarly, if you remember how you have always been successful in past strenuous activities such as sports and athletics, then you shall be confident about your abilities. This lead to an improvement in your self-efficacy.

3). You Should Learn to Get Rid of the Pressure – You Are Only Taking an Exam and Nothing More

With the assumption that you have adequately prepared for the exam, the only thing that could be standing in front of you and your academic success is your fears. You should get rid of these fears by regularly thinking that failure at the exam does not automatically end the world.

While it is not good to dwell on failing, just think of the review as a mere stepping stone to the next stage and nothing more. If you unburden your mind this way, you shall get the needed focus to perform well at the exam.

4). Get Yourself Calm by Practising Meditation and Relation Exercises

When you practice meditation, you learn how to keep yourself quiet, even in stressful situations like exams. A calm mind can quickly disengage from worries and be able to focus on the exam properly. 

Meditation is a useful tool that can be learned. If used properly, it can effectively rid the mind of negative emotions like fear, panic, and anxieties.

Similarly, practising relation exercises and relative practices like deep breathing can be done quickly during the exam can keep you calm during stressful situations.

5). Get Yourself Used to the Exam Conditions

Practice mock exams under actual exam conditions, and it will increase your chances of becoming successful in your reviews. Active reading and practising under similar stressful exam conditions work well on the mind and make it used to the actual stressful situations.

That way, if you practice pretty often, you will find out that you may be naturally riding your mind of all fears and anxieties. 

This is how you simply overcome your concerns. Practising in the same exam conditions to face your fears will help you in gradually riding your mind of panic, fear, and anxiety.

Conclusion

In this very competitive world that we live in, we are always put under Pressure by our parents, peers, and the general society to become successful in our endeavours.

People panic on their jobs not to get sacked, in schools not to fail, in businesses not to go bankrupt, in sports not to suffer defeat, and so on. It appears that fear and panic are part of being human. 

However, it is realizing the dangers of this panic and effectively taking steps to stop it from stopping us in our lives that differentiates us from those who succumbed to these fears. These solutions for avoiding alarms have been proven to be active and will work on anyone that religiously follows them.