How you can manage Leaving Cert stress

ONE of the most common topics of conversation around the state exams is the stress that young people feel.

These exams are perhaps the most stressful any of us have faced in our lives and unless this stress is managed well, it can become an all-consuming negative experience that can leave students feeling overwhelmed and unable to perform to their potential.

Students every year experience a lot of negative emotion in relation to the exams. Some of the most common things I hear from students every year are, “what’s the point”, “there is too much to do” and “it’s too much pressure”, to name just a few.

However, when students learn to manage their stress and view it in different ways, they can manage to remain focused on the exams without becoming overwhelmed. There are a number of things that students can do to help themselves.

How we view stress

Stress is (often correctly) seen as a negative experience in our lives. We view stress as times in our lives where we feel like we can’t cope, feel overwhelmed and exhausted. This is true when stress becomes too much. Sometimes this is out of our control, other times it’s because we fail to do the things, we know that are good for us to reduce stress.

However, stress is not always a bad thing in our lives. Manageable stress can serve as a motivator in our lives. If we were not stressed, we would not get up every morning and work to reach our goals. How we view the stress can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. If we only see it as negative, we will only experience it as something that is difficult and frustrating.

If we view healthy stress as a motivator, we can use it to sustain our motivation during difficult challenges and help us achieve what we want to. It is important however to become aware of when stress is becoming too much for us and take action to reduce it before we become overwhelmed.

Developing resilience

Overcoming challenges and stresses helps us to develop our resilience. Resilience is our ability to persevere when challenged and overcome difficult events or tasks. Over the coming months students will inevitably experience challenges and setbacks. It is at these times that students will need to be supported and encouraged so that they become more resilient and able to handle the challenges that they will face.

Resilience is an important skill to develop however, it is something that is only meant to be used when we experience difficulty, it is not something that we are supposed to use all of the time. Like good and bad stress, if we are forced to rely on our resilience all the time, we will quickly feel exhausted, frustrated and lose motivation. In situations like this, it is a signal that students need to ask for help or take a break.

Taking a Break

One of the most counterproductive things that students do during the final few months before the exams is work constantly.

The belief that spending long hours revising will provide increasing benefits is untrue as spending an excess amount of time studying can actually be a waste of time as students reach their capacity for learning and push through. This creates a sense of frustration as well as decreased motivation as it becomes more difficult to retain information.

It’s important that students focus on well planned productive revision when planning to study. it’s always quality over quantity and if a student spends twenty minutes and learns something well it’s always better than spending hours learning a number of things that will be almost forgotten the next day.

Feeling you are not doing enough

For many students, stress is caused in a different way as they are unable to focus and prepare for the exams. The feeling of not doing enough can cause feeling of guilt, frustration, and apathy.

To make things more challenging, students who fall into this category are reminded regularly that they are doing enough or not reaching their full potential, confirming the negative feelings they already have.

It can be difficult to break out of this cycle, especially for those students who don’t see value in the Leaving Cert exams. Sometimes doing the best that you can in each moment is the best way to counteract this. Incremental improvements, no matter how small, can create momentum that will eventually lead to increased motivation.

When stress becomes too much

Sometimes, stress can become too much for any of us. Challenging times in our lives can also teach us valuable lessons such as, the amount of stress and pressure we can handle and continue to persevere as well as, when we reach our limit and need help.

Knowing the difference can be difficult for young people and they can often be slow to ask for help. However, it’s important that if stress becomes too much to seek help and support. This can often provide a different perspective which can encourage new ways of doing things to help reduce stress.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alan White is a second level teacher, 6th Year Head, and wellbeing author at Bishop stown Community School. He also facilitates wellbeing workshops for companies and or ganisations.

For more information, visit www.change swellbeing.ie linkedin Alan White or Changes Wellbeing on Facebook.