The exam period for Athens Drive High School is from Friday, January 19 to Friday, January 26. During this period, many students experience anxiety and stress about how they will do on their exams, especially since it’s 20 percent of the overall grade. To avoid this, many students do different techniques to relieve stress.
Many students study to avoid stress. It’s important to study for days or weeks before the exam, and not cramming everything right before. According to Psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, cramming everything is good for short term memory, but everything is forgotten immediately after.
Organizing notes onto one page can make studying easier and less overwhelming than having a stack of papers from throughout the semester.
“It makes it so much easier to only have one thing to look at as opposed to a lot. It makes me feel like there’s less work, even though there isn’t,” said Abby Bowdish. Senior.
Going on a walk or doing light exercise is another way many students can relieve their stress. According to the Huffington Post, talking a walk can improve your memory and attention span by 20 percent. It also reduces stress hormones and increases energy.
“Everything feels so much better afterwards. Just to be able to take everything in and breathe takes away all the stress from before,” said Jordan Walker, junior.
Sometimes just taking a break and breathing can be enough to relieve exam stress. A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that employees to took short but frequent breaks had “reduced exhaustion and more willingness to go beyond assigned tasks.”
“I do like to eat away my emotions and take showers. I like to take showers because it’s refreshing and 10 minutes where I can just be away from work,” said Edward Bynum, senior.
Exams can be a very stressful time for students and there are plenty of other techniques to try, including meditation, eating right and getting more sleep. Every individual person has a different way to relieve stress and it is important to use those during the exam period.
