What should we do if we cannot progress in our studies due to anxiety?
It happens to many of us that we get blocked in a stake situation and do not perform as we would have expected from ourselves. But why does this happen? Many people think that they have not studied enough or that they have problems with their attention. However, stress often causes this problem.
How does stress affect our performance?
We need a certain level of stress. If we are not stimulated, then we are in a calm state, we are not motivated. Everyone has an optimal stress level that varies from person to person. When we experience this optimal level of stress, we perform at our best. Our body is then prepared for the task, we feel motivated and enter a state of excitement (Selye, 1950).
If we experience more stress than this, it already acts as an inhibitory factor in our brain. We experience this as increasing anxiety. Physiological symptoms of this also appear: sweating, hand tremors, increased pulse and breathing, dry mouth, a lumpy feeling in the throat, dizziness, nausea, even diarrhea and fainting may occur.
In this case, our body can no longer pay attention to what we learned before the exam, but instead focuses on the changes in our body and how it could restore it to its original state.
It is natural that in such a case we cannot concentrate and recall what we have learned.
Now that we know what causes it, what can we do to avoid it?
On the one hand, we can change our body’s response. The easiest of these is to reduce the breathing rate.
This also requires practice. If you know about yourself that you will be stressed in a performance situation, it is good if you are already preparing in advance with breathing exercises.
You don’t have to think of any complicated movements. All you have to do is start paying attention to your breathing, where you’re taking your breath, whether your chest and stomach are filling up, whether your ribs are protruding sideways. In addition to deepening your breathing, you can slow it down. Start counting the number of seconds it takes for each breath in and out. Always try to increase the duration a little.
As your breathing deepens and slows down, your body will sense that you are not in an emergency and will gradually return to a state of rest, so that your brain will have the capacity to recall learned material.
Any kind of relaxation, meditation, yoga, even regular exercise itself has a positive effect on changing your body’s physiological responses.
Jacobson’s progressive relaxation (Jacobson, 1938) can be easily learned in one session, which also requires practice. The technique is based on tensing and relaxing the muscles. Its effect is that through the relaxation of tense muscles, in addition to tour physical tensions, our internal tensions are also dissolved.
Another very useful technique is autogenic training (Schultz, 1932), which can be learned in 12 sessions. This also requires constant practice. In addition to the basic exercises of relaxation, heaviness and warming up, our main internal organs and their operating mechanisms are covered that we can learn to become aware of and thereby control.
In addition to the physical reactions we can also change our thoughts. It is not the fact that we have an exam that causes too much stress and anxiety in itself, but what we think about the exam, how “dangerous” we consider it to be.
We may think “This is too hard, I’m going to fail”. This thought creates a lot of anxiety, so your brain can’t concentrate, you really won’t be able to perform. And then you think: “I was right, this is really too hard for me.”
On the other hand, if we think: “This is a difficult exam, but I have prepared a lot for it, I think I will pass,” then we do not unnecessarily tie up our brain capacity with anxiety. Instead, we can focus on the task. Of course, more positive and realistic thinking alone does not guarantee better grades, but it gives them a chance. It is important also in case of thoughts to first become aware of them. This is not easy at first, but it can be mastered with practice.
When we “catch” these negative automatic thoughts, it’s a good idea to write them down. In this way we can also summarize what they are about, in which topics they appear.
Then comes the evaluation of the thoughts. How realistic can this be? “Am I really going to fail? Well, I don’t know, maybe they’re asking me things I don’t know, I’m failing. But I know about 80% of the material, so there’s a better chance they’ll ask me something I already know. More realistically, I think I will pass. I may not know all the answers, but I will know most of the questions.”
If we replace negative thoughts with reformulated, realistic thoughts, our anxiety level will decrease, and we’ll have a better chance of passing the exam.
There are other, small tricks: the usual routine before each exam, mascots (favourite key ring, pen, clothes, etc.), finding a safety spot in the exam room (you spot a point on the wall in advance, that reminds you not to be afraid when you look at it), practicing target formulas (e.g. “I can call up everything I’ve learned from memory”, “my thoughts flow easily”, “knowledge flows from my pen like a river”).
If you feel that your anxiety is hindering your performance, you are alone and you cannot solve the situation with the help of your friends, or if you are just more interested in these techniques, feel free to contact our psychologist at
Sources: Jacobson, E. (1938). Progressive Relaxation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Schzultz, H. (1932). Das Autogene Training. Konzentrative Selbstentspannung. Leipzig, D: Thieme.
Selye H. (1950). Stress and the general adaptation syndrome. British Medical Journal. 1383-1392.