Naboo beats all the stress management techniques out there with the kitten in a barrel routine
It's highly likely that you're going to feel some stress in the coming weeks. A little is good: it sharpens your thinking and fuels your motivation; but too much is bad.
Not is it only bad for all the malaise it causes but it damages your working memory (e.g., Morgan et al., 2006), which you need to think and solve problems with, and your ability to solidify long-term memories (e.g., Chen et al., 2008), which you obviously need to remember course content. Also, "[y]our IQ plummets. Your creativity, your sense of humor — all of that disappears. You're stupid." according to psychiatrist Edward Hallowell author of CrazyBusy. You may not need a sense of humour to write psychology essays (but it's probably a good thing to have to get through the revision process) but you'll want your creativity firing otherwise those top marks are out of reach.
Now there's lots out there on ameliorating stress. I might do a series of posts on a couple of things later. But for now I think it's better to think about what causes it. When it comes to exams, stress is the distance between where you are and where you want to be.
If you want a First, there are three weeks to exams and you haven't done a drop of revision, your stress level is going to be monstrous. If you don't care what you get, there are three weeks to exams and you haven't done a drop of revision, your stress level is going to fairly low.
Unfortunately, once the gap gets wide enough it'll start growing all by itself because stress deleteriously (ooh get me!) affects thinking and memory, precisely those things you need to narrow the gap. It's a nasty place to be.
To keep this distance to a minimum, you could always cut what you want your degree classification to be - but this is only a strategy for loafers. The alternative is to i) give yourself loads of time (i.e. start now), ii) draw up a good timetable so you can monitor and manage the 'stress distance' and iii) share out some of the immense requisite research.
This may sound achingly obvious but the obvious remains in the theoretical realm for some people until it is too late. There will be people (re)reading this post in a month's time and kicking themselves. Don't be one of them.
Not is it only bad for all the malaise it causes but it damages your working memory (e.g., Morgan et al., 2006), which you need to think and solve problems with, and your ability to solidify long-term memories (e.g., Chen et al., 2008), which you obviously need to remember course content. Also, "[y]our IQ plummets. Your creativity, your sense of humor — all of that disappears. You're stupid." according to psychiatrist Edward Hallowell author of CrazyBusy. You may not need a sense of humour to write psychology essays (but it's probably a good thing to have to get through the revision process) but you'll want your creativity firing otherwise those top marks are out of reach.
Now there's lots out there on ameliorating stress. I might do a series of posts on a couple of things later. But for now I think it's better to think about what causes it. When it comes to exams, stress is the distance between where you are and where you want to be.
If you want a First, there are three weeks to exams and you haven't done a drop of revision, your stress level is going to be monstrous. If you don't care what you get, there are three weeks to exams and you haven't done a drop of revision, your stress level is going to fairly low.
Unfortunately, once the gap gets wide enough it'll start growing all by itself because stress deleteriously (ooh get me!) affects thinking and memory, precisely those things you need to narrow the gap. It's a nasty place to be.
To keep this distance to a minimum, you could always cut what you want your degree classification to be - but this is only a strategy for loafers. The alternative is to i) give yourself loads of time (i.e. start now), ii) draw up a good timetable so you can monitor and manage the 'stress distance' and iii) share out some of the immense requisite research.
This may sound achingly obvious but the obvious remains in the theoretical realm for some people until it is too late. There will be people (re)reading this post in a month's time and kicking themselves. Don't be one of them.
1 comment:
Another soothing cat distraction: http://catsinsinks.com/
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