Decompressing During Stressful Situations

Techniques that may help you to be more relaxed during exams, interviews and other stressful times.

Introduction

“Don’t stress about it!” It’s a very common phrase, but it rarely comes with any more advice after that, so this post is here to provide some techniques to stress less about the things that you will inevitably experience, such as; exams, job interviews and presentations. Some of these tips may be useful to helping you to feel a bit more in control.

There are different reasons as to why situations can be stressful, at times due to external pressures like deadlines, exams or even other people. There are also internal pressures that we place on ourselves, to perform to a certain level or to reach a particular milestone. Let’s explore ways you can attempt to de-stress.

Press Pause

Think of when you have been in a heated disagreement with someone, voices raised, emotions are high… and then your phone rings. It’s someone important so you have to pick up the call, within seconds you are able to change your tone and volume, even if you were at the height of your anger. This situation, and ones like it show that you are able to control your emotions and your behaviour even in highly stressful situations. You are able to press pause and not let your feelings impact what you are doing. That level of self-control can be used in other situations too. When you are doing an exam for example, and you start to feel overwhelmed with answering questions, pause for a minute or two and reassure yourself that you know this information, that you have studied for months, and as cliched as it may sound, close your eyes and take some deep, slow breaths. This pause can help you to refocus and drive out panic. For your general well-being it can also be important to take pauses from your normal routine to have a day where you rest and do what you enjoy or something new that excites you.

Use your imagination

Your mind is a powerful tool. If you are able to change your way of thinking you are more likely to change your mood or feelings in a given situation. If you have come to a point where you are feeling very anxious or unsure, your imagination may come in handy at that moment. If you are giving a presentation, imagine that the people around you are friends and family, who are all supporting you, or maybe that everyone is an egg, or something equally as funny. This will make the situation feel less tense and more light-hearted. Furthermore, your imagination will come in handy when you are in an exam and a question seems particularly difficult, pretend you are tutoring or teaching a child how they can answer the question. This forces you to break things down, and go step-by-step, and you will see where there are gaps in your knowledge.

Take breaks but don’t stop completely

Sometimes when you get overwhelmed it can feel better to stop… and not come back to what you were doing in the first place. However, you are left feeling guilty for not having completed a task you were meant to do. This can make you feel like you have wasted time, or that something is looming over your head and that it has grown bigger because you didn’t make as much progress as you thought you would. Instead of beating yourself up for not studying or not preparing, start practising how to take breaks. Yes, practising how to take breaks, you read that right. Instead of working on something until you feel like your head will pop, or taking breaks that were meant to last minutes but stretch on for hours, time yourself. If you set a timer and work on something for 30 minutes, then set another timer for a 15 minute break you will most likely be a lot more productive than trying to revise for three hours straight, but getting distracted 20 minutes in. It will take effort and practice to end your breaks on time or stay focussed for the full 30 minutes, but this will not only help you to increase your productivity but also your discipline, and it will be useful in situations where you have strict timings such as a timed assessment, or a presentation.

The key to overcoming stressful situations is within you, it may take some practice to, but you are capable of it. Hopefully, these tips will help you to decompress during stressful situations.