5 Ways to De-stress the Test

Alison GuhStaff WriterIn this season of APs, SAT/ACTs, CSTs, and finals, one of the biggest problems we have to face as high school students is stress. Here are a few ways to get rid of stress in this time of testing.1. Avoid Stress by Preparing:This may seem obvious, but the best way to de-stress is to avoid stress completely. Prepare for your test well in advance by studying and reviewing the material covered in the test. This will raise your confidence levels and keep you from stressing out before a test.2. Eat Brain Food:Before you being an exam, eat a healthy and nutritious breakfast. Studies by UCLA researchers show that eating certain foods such as whole grains, nuts, tomatoes, blueberries and fish can improve instant memory recall and deter short-term memory loss. Instead of skipping breakfast on your way out of the house, try to grab a balanced meal to sustain you through the test and improve your memory. As Mom said, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.3. Write down your feelings:This may sound odd, but according to a 2010 University of Chicago study, students can combat test anxiety and improve performance by writing about their worries immediately before they begin an exam.According to an article published in the journal Science, “Writing about Testing Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom,” researchers found that students who were prone to test anxiety improved their high–stakes test scores by nearly one grade point after they were given 10 minutes to write about what was causing them fear.According to the study’s senior author, Sian Beilock, the writing exercise allowed students to unload their anxieties before taking the test and thereby freed up brainpower needed to complete the test successfully — brainpower that is normally occupied by worries about the test.4. Exercise:According to a study done by University College London, exercising consistently can not only help you sleep better and burn off excess energy before a test, but can even protect you from damaging artery inflammation that flares up during times of mental stress.The study examined how aerobic fitness affects the release of chemicals linked to damaging inflammation in adults who are stressed, measuring two chemicals: interleukin-6, or IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, or TNF. Increases of the chemicals raise the risk for heart disease.According to Mark Hamer, an exercise biology researcher at University College London, stressed but fit middle-aged adults produce far less of the two chemicals and have less inflammation than less fit individuals.Hamer tested 186 healthy adults who used exercise bikes. He drew their blood, gave them two mentally stressful exercises and then drew blood again. The least fit had five times the increase in TNF as the most fit. The fittest adults also had one-third of the increase in IL-6 found in the blood of unfit adults, indicating that mental stress probably is doing the least damage to the fittest adults’ hearts.5. Get some sleep:Instead of pulling an all-nighter to cram the night before a big exam or test, try to catch a few winks of sleep. According to the Nemours Foundation, students that pull an all-nighter often find that they do worse than the students that took the time to get some sleep.Sleep is when memories are created. According to a study by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), sleep is when your brain turns information into learned knowledge. During the day you absorb a lot of information that floats around in your mind. During sleep, that information becomes a permanent part of your brain. Avoiding sleep will actually cause you to permanently forget many of the things you learned during the day, because your brain wasn’t able to form the neural connections necessary to turn them into memories.Furthermore, according to Memory Loss and the Brain by Catherine E. Myers, studies show that learning that takes place in one situation or “state” is generally better remembered later in a similar situation or state. Essentially, if you are wide awake when you learn something, you will do better if you are also wide awake when you take the test. So unless you never slept before going to class, you probably learned everything that will be on the test while you were relatively awake. If you take the test exhausted, you’re less likely to recall that knowledge, and you will do worse as a result.By employing these techniques, you can avoid the stress of testing season and do your best on all your tests.Calm down, study up. and good luck.aguh@thesamohi.com