It’s that time of year again when the nation’s students are gearing up to sit their exams. Anxiety, tension, stress and nerves are at their peak. Not just for the students, parents, carers and tutors too.
As a mindset coach I’ve helped many students go from panic to feeling back in control and achieving maximum exam performance with hypnosis.
In this blog I’m helping you to turn around the dreaded experience of the exam experience and maximise on your potential. Resulting in the experience becoming more fun and interesting and hence achievable. It’s a win win because our subconscious thrives on a fun and interesting environment.
There are several steps to negotiate to achieve the best results you want to help catapult you on to the next stage of your life.
Mindset Matters- tension v mental calmness
Firstly you need to understand the role your mind plays when it’s under pressure. In this case to perform at its ultimate best to prove how much you know on paper.
When we are in panic and a high anxiety state what happens is your nerves and tension get the better of you and your brain simply stops working effectively.
If you can see your subconscious as a mental muscle, when it’s tense it tightens up and stops working efficiently. In psychology it’s known as state-dependant memory. The emotional state you are in determines what you can remember. If you are in a very different condition to when you learned, it becomes hard to recall and answer the questions correctly.
Hence when you are anxious, your brain is simply in the wrong frame of mind for thinking, memorising and recalling. Consequently if you’re tense your brain is receiving the signal that there’s something threatening going on. As a result when that happens, it starts to operate in survival mode.
When you are functioning in an anxiety and stress frequency, your brain is in the wrong state for recall. The mental memory muscle is tense, you go blank, consequently self doubt and panic sets in. It’s a vicious cycle.
Hypnosis help for exam nerves and Factual Recall
For those sufferers of exam nerves, and struggling with motivation and focus with your revision hypnosis is an excellent tool. Hypnosis helps re-train your brain to respond with the sort of emotional response that will help your success performance.
For example in an exam, you need calmness, both physically and mentally combined with a dose of excitement to give you that extra edge. A little stress actually improves memory and recall!
With the Progressive Success Exams hypnosis package that I offer I help train your unconscious mind to give you the right blend of relaxation and focus when you get to your exam. Over the course of the programme you will be encouraged to not only power up your confidence, your motivation and your focus. The subliminal words and phrases reinforce enhanced memory and help you recalling the rights facts too.
Sustaining your Revision Mojo
We have determined that in order to be in the ideal exam performing state to memorise and recall information we need to feel in control, calm and sufficiently confident that we have put the revision effort in to achieve our optimum result.
Exam success is not purely down to the revision it’s also dependant how you revise. Just by hoping that by cramming and reading your notes and text books will suffice, you are in for a shock.
Whilst working with Milo who was a keen skate boarder. Sitting still for ages drove him to distraction. So we factored in lots of skate boarding and trampolining time to help stimulate Milo’s natural adrenalin which helped channel him to stay focused during revision time.
- Be realistic. Make a revision time table. . The brain functions optimally for 4-6 hours a day. Timetable your revision, preferably into half-hour slots with short breaks of 5-10 minutes. View non revision time as an opportunity towards topping up your batteries. It’s important to maintain lots of exercise that works for you. Whilst working with Milo who was a keen skate boarder. Sitting still for ages drove him to distraction. So we factored in lots of skate boarding and trampolining time to help stimulate Milo’s natural adrenalin which helped channel him to stay focused during revision time.
- Relax down time- Do what works for you socialising, cooking…activities that are enjoyable and stimulating.
- Jazz it up so your subconscious is stimulated and excited. .Buy stationery that actively releases your feel good senses to use it. For example vibrant packs of multicoloured pens and a rainbow of record cards. Post it notes, whatever takes your fancy.
- Be active not passive with your revision – Factor in revision buddy time and test one another. Do past papers. Make flash cards. Create mind maps.
- If the timetable slips, don’t give up. It’s just a blip. We all have them. Have a conversation in your head as to how pleased and happier you will feel with yourself after a good day of Some meaningful revision is way better than none.
- Eat and drink well. Top up your engine…like a sports car and fuel up with premium food and drink to enhance your memory. Eggs, bananas, avocado, salads, fish,, seeds to munch on. Save the pizzas and treats for the weekend . Balance is key, not to over or under eat. Avoid alcohol, and caffeine drinks.no more than two a day and plenty of fresh water.
- Sleep This is important so listen up! If you don’t get enough good sleep, or if you get too much, then you risk either not revising properly, or for all your revision to be lost in horrible brain fog. Science has proved that our capacity to retain and store information requires good sleep this means ideally we want approximately eight hours. Maintain a bedtime routine of hitting the pillow no later than 11 am . Also, don’t give into the temptation to go nocturnal before exams. Why, because the exams are not at night and you are training your brain to perform at its peak.
- Calm parents– Learn to back off with the nagging and your own anxiety levels. Trust your child to manage it their way. In most cases you can help them by providing a calm atmosphere at home and good regular tasty meals and plenty of encouragement. Less argy bargy the better all round.
Hypnosis is also effective to help unscramble your brain if your stuck with a particular subject. If want an extra boost of confidence hypnosis can be effective unpick and understand your blocks.
Good luck…stick to the plan and if you suffer from nerves and lack of exam confidence give hypnosis a go.
Recent Comments