Exam stress drives students to drink
According to an article in the press last month, exam stress and parental pressure are driving many school children to alcohol and self-harming.
The ChildLine counselling service says that 1 in 10 pupils will deliberately scar or hit themselves in the run up to this summer’s GCSEs and A-Levels, and 14% of students admit to turning to alcohol as they struggle to cope with the stress of exams or their parent's high expectations. Woe betides the student struggling with a combination of both. Four percent of children also confessed to abusing drugs as a way of dealing with their anxiety, and according to the research, two-thirds are also going without sleep. These are worrying and heartbreaking statistics in this day and age.
Did you know that many students don't know how to use their brain and memory most effectively - especially when it comes to studying for exams where the pressure on their time and mental capacities is even greater? But according to Marilyn Devonish, PhotoReading Instructor & Accelerated Learning Coach, with a little creativity and very simple changes in approach, reading, learning and studying for exams can be much easier to do.
Every exam year students are faced with the same dilemma says Marilyn. "This should be a time where students are excited about their prospects for the future and focusing on how to shine, not turning to drink, drugs and self-harming as a means of making it through."
To help reduce and alleviate exam stress, Marilyn Devonish has suggested five simple ways to prepare for a revision session and make studying and exam performance better than ever:
TIP 1 - BREATHE!
Well yes, of course you everyone is already breathing, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this! However, most people when stressed or under pressure find themselves shallow breathing without even realising it. This deprives your brain of oxygen and automatically makes a study session more difficult.
I have a simple 60 second technique dramatically changes the breathing and re-energises both the brain and body.
TIP 2 - CHANGE YOUR FOCUS
Marilyn says, when I first observe my clients in 'study mode' they often sit staring intently at the books and piles of course material, brow furrowed, and face slightly contorted, almost trying to physically show how hard they are studying and concentrating.
The whole act of staring intently at the material sets off the sympathetic nervous system, or what is commonly known as the fight or flight response. The heart is racing, the adrenalin pumping, and creativity starts to shut down so that the logical analytical brain can step in and take over. This part of the brain is great for dealing with those life or death situations, but not so great for reading, learning, retaining information, or studying.
There is a quick 5 second exercise which Marilyn shares with her students to change this so that they can operate from the parasympathetic nervous system which leads to an immediate state of relaxed alertness and what we call the Ideal Learning State. In this state the mind is relaxed and alert, and most importantly, left and right brain are working together so that students gain maximum benefit from their study sessions. It also means that they are able to more easily remember and retain what's being studied and read.
TIP 3 - CHANGE YOUR POSTURE
Going hand in hand with sitting and staring intently at the books, is sitting almost hunched over, as though trying to get even closer to the study material. The chances are, if your posture is stressed and out of alignment, your mind will be experiencing the same too.
I teach my clients some very simple but hugely effective movements from the field of Educational Kinesiology. They only take a couple of minutes to complete, and have the effect of not only relaxing the muscles, they also cross the mid line of the body which stimulates both left and right brain integration which is vital when studying.
TIP 4 - SET YOUR PURPOSE
I know it might sound unbelievable but many students read with no sense of purpose or focus. They spend hours trying to plough through piles of material but if I were stop them and ask "What specifically are you looking for?" The majority would give me a blank stare.
Reading without a Purpose is like taking a journey with no destination, you will end up somewhere, but the chances are it may not be what you had in mind or desired. In studying terms this means you could face the prospect of sitting in the exam room with some information in your head, but not the information that leads to the destination of passing your exams.
We have a simple 5-step technique for accelerating reading and studying skills and gaining clarity around what you want to learn and extract the right information from every book that you read.
Having a sense of Purpose sets off a part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System. It's almost like a heat seeking device, that when programmed with the right information, will automatically find, highlight, and bring the required information to your attention. After using the 5-step process for setting their Purpose, students find that the parts of the text that they are looking for almost 'leap out' at them, with very little or no effort on their part.
TIP 5 - BE REALISTIC
One of the fastest ways to get into overwhelm is to take on too much at the outset or have unrealistic expectations about what can be achieved in each study session. When I ask students what they want to achieve from a particular book or subject they often respond along the lines of "I want to know everything about subject X." It is unlikely that you want or even need to know everything about a subject. What you really need is to know about the subject in a way that will allow you to pass your exams.
The short term memory goes into overwhelm very quickly, just try holding more than 3 new telephone numbers in your head. Using the PhotoReading Whole Mind System, we bypass the conscious blocks and barriers and work directly with the expansive part of the mind and memory.
These are just an introduction to some of the tips and simple exercises and techniques that Marilyn Devonish recommends.
For more information, visit: tranceformationstm.com
