Psychologist Zanon’s advice for how to best deal with the night before the final exam, between rest and exercises against anxiety.
The night before the final exam can be a “night of tears and prayers”, as Antonello Venditti sang in a famous song. But for many students the night before the final exam is above all a sleepless night: many spend it tossing and turning in bed, gripped by anxiety and the fear of not making it.
For other students, it is a night of ” crazy and desperate studying “, spent drinking liters of coffee to stay awake in the superhuman effort to imprint the latest notions in their mind. Relatively few are the lucky ones who go to sleep peacefully and calmly, waking up fresh and rested after eight or more hours of sleep.
Yet everyone knows the importance of a good night’s sleep! Sleep deprivation negatively affects memory, attention and concentration. In other words, after a sleepless night, our brain functions less brilliantly and there is an overall worsening of cognitive performance. This is precisely why it is important to arrive at the exam in good psychophysical condition!
Night Before Exams: What to Do
Here are some tips that can be useful to you to structure your night before the final exam. Whether you decide to spend it alone at home or with your friends, these are valid suggestions to avoid panicking!
Caffeine before the exam
Starting at 3:00 p.m., stop drinking coffee or other drinks that contain caffeine or other stimulants.
Even if you are tempted to stay alert and active in anticipation of the exam – perhaps even for a final revision – try not to give in. It is well known that too much caffeine, combined with excitement/agitation for the upcoming exam, can interfere with the quality of sleep. In short, a risk you absolutely must not take even if you are not particularly sensitive to this substance.
Diet
The best time to have dinner the night before the exam is between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Eating later can strain your digestion and worsen the quality of your sleep.
The ideal dinner is light: avoid foods that weigh down digestion such as processed, spicy, salty or too fatty foods. Instead, prefer easily digestible dishes with a calming effect.
The list of foods that appear to promote sleep includes: vegetables (especially lettuce and celery), bananas, peaches and sweet fruit, fish and chicken, rice and pasta (preferably whole grain), yogurt and honey.
Pre-exam relaxation
After dinner, ideally you should close the books and dedicate yourself to a relaxing activity. Anything is fine: a chat with a friend or your boyfriend/girlfriend, a walk, listening to music, watching a comedy.
However, spending the whole night studying is not recommended unless your situation is truly desperate. But even if you are ” badly off ” you should make an effort not to study all night and still reserve at least three or four hours for sleep.
Resting Before Maturity: No Sleeping Pills
It’s 10:30 p.m., bedtime is approaching but you still feel as tense as a violin string? Don’t be tempted by the sleeping pill!
If you feel anxious, don’t ask Mom and Dad to lend you their sleeping pill or, even worse, their anti-anxiety medication.
If you are not used to taking benzodiazepines , and I hope for your sake that you are not, you could risk unpleasant side effects: for example, finding yourself foggy and groggy in the morning. Furthermore, there is always the problem of dosage. The dosage that is good for your parents may not be good for you.
If you feel nervous, you can also resort to natural remedies (you can find a wide selection in herbalist’s shops) but even here, respect the doses! Even if they are herbal products, they always have active ingredients, so limit yourself to the recommended dosage.
Maturity: Relaxing Foods
As an alternative to the usual herbal tea, you could drink a glass of warm milk with honey or, if you are allergic to dairy products, a chamomile tea sweetened with honey. These are all ” soft
State exam: relaxation strategies
The high summer temperatures do not allow a hot bath, but even a warm bath before going to bed has a relaxing power.
If possible, dissolve essential oils in your bath water that act on the central nervous system and induce relaxation. The best is chamomile oil, which has low toxicity. Just 15 drops dissolved in your bath water will have a relaxing effect.
NB: It is important to know that essential oils should never be applied directly to the skin!
Maturity: Breathing and Visualization Exercises
When we are anxious or worried, our breathing changes, becoming shallower and more hurried. However, with deeper and slower breathing we can regain our lost calm.
An easy breathing exercise that everyone can do is the following: inhale slowly, hold your breath for a few moments and exhale, blowing the air out. The exhalation should be very slow and deep, as if you wanted to completely empty your lungs.
Continue breathing like this until you feel calmer.
If you have a very developed imagination, in particular you do nothing but think about how you will panic on the day of the exam, try visualization .
Try to imagine the day of the exam in detail but, instead of imagining yourself stammering and trembling, imagine being sure of yourself. Imagine being at ease, looking your professors in the eye, staying focused even when faced with a trick question and expressing yourself with ease.
If the anxiety does not go away, you can resort to a slightly ” naughty ” visualization: imagine that professor who intimidates you in a ridiculous or unpleasant situation. Imagine him, for example, in his underwear or while he is going to the bathroom. All this will help you understand that your professors are first and foremost human beings rather than authorities ready to judge you.
State Exam: How to Fight Fear
Can’t fall asleep and keep tormenting yourself, thinking about the things you don’t know and the terrible test that, you feel, you’ll do tomorrow? Get out of bed and take a pen and paper. Write down in detail all your fears from the fear of coming out with a test on a topic you don’t know, to the fear of being silent.
You’ll find that putting your fears on paper helps you put them into perspective . But in addition to listing your fears, also list all of your strengths and the things that are in your favor .
Don’t you see any? Try hard! I’ll give you a little help. After all, the final exam is nothing more than a big test. And since you managed to get through five years of tests and homework, you’ll also be able to pass the final exam.
Then examine your anxieties from a rational perspective , that is, try asking yourself what is the worst thing that could happen to you.
I’ll answer for you: the worst thing that could happen to you in the final exam is to fail and disappoint your parents’ expectations. It’s certainly not a very attractive prospect, but it’s not a tragedy either.
In the worst case scenario, you will repeat a year of high school (with the disadvantages but also the advantages that this entails) and your parents, once they have overcome their initial disappointment, will come to terms with it. But if you evaluate your situation rationally, the chances of failing the exam are quite slim. In short, if you reflect a little on your fears, you will be able to put them into perspective and gain a less catastrophic view of your situation.
