School Related Things:  Reduce Stress With Good Study Skills

I’ll have a ton of stuff about study skills on the success site (coming soon to a computer screen near you), but let’s talk about the stress side of studying…  or not studying.

If you really want to be in school and care about your grades, there is nothing more stressful (student-wise) than to take a test that you haven’t studied properly for.  It’s brutal.  The first question you get to that you can’t answer (and it’s usually the first question) causes little beads of sweat to start sprouting on your upper lip.  You feel a surge of adrenaline followed by a pit in your stomach.  After that, it’s 1-2 hours of slow torture. 

I’ve had students have anxiety attacks during exams and I’ve even had a few students start crying.  One guy was crying so hard that he was sucking wind and making those big snuffy sounds.  You know, the kind you see when those girls don't get a rose on The Bachelor…  “I-I-I-I don’t know why he-he-he didn’t gi-gi-gi-give me a rose.  I lu-u-u-u-oved him so mu-u-u-ch.”  Now, THAT’S funny!  Not so much during an exam though.

Exams ARE stressful.  There’s no getting around that.  But, they should only be a little stressful – not something that ties you up in knots.  Exams are just so much MORE stressful if you haven’t studied enough or haven’t studied effectively.

Proper studying will really help to drop your school stress down to a normal level.