HOW TO COMBAT STRESS WHILE PREPARING FOR COMPETITIVE ENTRANCE EXAMINATION?
Stress is a word that has become synonymous with the student life. This stress rises manifold when a student is preparing for a national level entrance such as CLAT, HM, AILET etc. We get to hear this word stress so much on a daily basis that let’s try to understand what exactly is stress and how one can cope with it.
In simple words, stress is an individual’s response to different situations. Basically, it involves one’s emotional and physical response and may be different for different people. One may find one thing stressful, which may not be the case for the other person. In fact, different people will follow different ways to cope with the stress.
You will be surprised to know that stress isn’t always bad. Positive stress is known as Eustress, which is important and the basic minimal requirement for an individual to perform well. However, as everything needs to be in limit. Similarly, human body can also bear stress upto a certain limit. When eustress gets converted into a chronic situation, the body starts showing the symptoms in the form of anxiety, palpitation, insomnia, excessive hunger, continuous headaches etc. Some of the most common manifestations of stress are anger and frustration. This is basically body’s manner to indicate us that we need to control and regulate the factors causing stress. If we are unable to do the same, it can worsen our health leading to migraine, and situation like heart stroke.
In today’s time of Snapchat and Instagram, the causes of stress are actually quite different from what they used to be earlier. Today’s generation easily gets bogged down by the rising peer pressure. It is very sad to see the students struggle through stress of not having a particular kind of phone or electronic gadget. Most of you will agree that social media is the biggest contributor to the stress in today’s times. Besides, there may be cases where students aren’t able to cope with the studies and they do not have any mentor or elder with whom they can share this problem. Let’s look at simple ways how you can easily cope with stress.
Time Management is an art to achieve your goals in life. You need to understand the value of your time and invest it carefully. Divide your day into productive and non-productive activities. Make sure that both of them are given judicious amount of time. The time devoted to second one must be less than the first one. This will actually make your life much sorted.
Looking at the vast syllabus of entrance examinations, it is important that you need to be regular with your subjects. Leaving everything for the last moment leads to an utterly chaotic situation adding to stress. Incorporate the practice of doing that small bit every day.
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FOCUS ON DIFFICULTY LEVEL
Some people will love mathematics and some will love history. But remember, that the entrance examination is a holistic examination and you need to focus on all the subjects equally. There may be subjects that you will find difficult to cope with. So, make sure that you are devoting extra time to those subjects. Giving mock tests can be of great help. They will help you to keep a track on your performance and evaluate it.
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FOCUS MORE ON SELF AND LESS ON OTHERS
Your age is such that you have so many distractions. There will be always someone who has a better phone, bag or laptop than you. Make sure that your only competition is you and not anyone else. It’s easier said than done. But this is actually one true technique to keep yourself focused. Don’t let the distractions in the form of friends and social media take over you.
You need to set realistically achievable goals for yourself and work towards achieving on them. These goals can be personal and related to career. Make sure you are on the right path to achieve these goals.
It becomes extremely important for students to regulate their diet and sleep patterns in order to achieve their goals. You need to understand the importance of healthy food and timely sleep in achieving your goals. Make sure that you incorporate fruit and vegetables in your diet. These are healthy and provide you the required nutrition and energy to keep you healthy and fit. Sleep is another important aspect as this is one of those processes that calm down your mind. If possible, try to incorporate yoga in your daily life. It will help you build inner resilience and mental strength.
It is very important for all of you to inculcate one hobby and pursue it. Make sure you carve out some time from your daily routine and indulge yourself in doing that one activity that you like the most. This can be you unwinding and stress-buster time.
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STAY AWAY FROM DISTRACTIONS
Make sure that you limit the use of things that keep you distracted. These are normally the mobile phones and laptops or computers. You need to limit your time spend on these devices. You may install mobile applications that block the usage of certain websites for a defined number of hours in a day.
These are some of the most generic ways to cope with the stress. There may be different mechanisms used by different people to keep them stress-free. Always make sure that it is Eustress that keeps you going and not the chronic one that bogs you down. And if you feel that you are unable to cope with your stress levels, make sure that you approach someone elder who can guide you with something better and relieve you from such a situation. Always remember that there is nothing wrong in asking help, so never be ashamed of doing the same as and when it is required.
