Adolescent’s mental health (Mental Health series Part 4)
S.Meera
meera.sathyamurthy@gmail.com
This issue is in continuation with previous topic on adolescents’ common problems. We are discussing on issues faced by good number of adolescents who would need counselling at the right time to correct their course of action, stay focused, develop emotional stability and become healthy societal members. We will be covering in subsequent issues, the medium to severe mental disorders, if these common problems are untreated for a long time.
Some more common problems and solutions
3. Exam Fear:
Do you experience most difficulty while you’re studying for exams? Or, in the exam room itself?
The symptoms can be expressed from physical aspects like sweating, heart palpitation to procrastination, poor concentration and less of focus to drug abuse.
Catch 22: You are aware that to study effectively you have to focus on the material, but the thoughts are about ‘what happens if I fail’ or ‘what if I go blank during the exam’. Negative thoughts are the killers.
Remember the 2 states of mind (part 2), conscious mind should be fed with positive thoughts for the subconscious mind to work 24x7 and make us do the right things. Following are some of the techniques:
1. Visualization or Imagery: You should imagine that you are going to exam hall, receiving the question paper, read all questions and you are starting to write the answers of questions of your choice, you are able to write all answers covering all the points and coming out successfully. This is positive thinking and imagination. Practice this scenario every day after 10 mins of deep breathing.
2. Deep Breathing: Relaxation technique of concentrating on slow inhalation through left nostril and breathing out through right by closing left. Again, start with right nostril to breathe out through left. This not only supplies sufficient oxygen for the brain to keep you with energy, but also helps in diverting the negative thoughts. More oxygen to brain and body, the better effort from your side is exerted. Also, relaxation and stress cannot co-exist. So, you are driving away stress.
3. Preparation: If you have not started reading and writing from the beginning, at least start now.
a. Put up a schedule for the remaining days for the subjects that needs to be studied. Prioritize on difficult subjects first.
b. Do Read-Write-Rehearse for 45 mins and take a small break. Last issue covers the studying and rehearsing method.
c. Solve question papers, a way of estimating writing time and rehearsing the exam moments. This practice is a must. It is called as “Graded Exposure”, you are getting exposed to exam like scenarios and helps in planning, executing well with several rehearsals.
d. Keep doing Visualization and Deep breathing every day.
4. Avoid the following
5. Diet and Sleep: Stick to nutritious balanced diet with plenty of water intake and sufficient sleep
6. Previous day of Exam:
a. Get a good night’s sleep
b. Make sure you know the venue of exam and time of exam, plan for the commute time to reach the exam 1 hour prior to exam.
c. Get pens, pencils, erasers, your watch, ID, Hall tickets, etc ready the night before
d. Do not read anything new. Go through the written notes or key points. Revise and Rehearse.
7. Day of Exam
a. Breathing and Visualization must activities to begin the day.
b. Mentally plan time schedule for answering the different sections in the Question Paper.
i. 5 mins glancing the questions – mental note on confident, not so confident etc
ii. Last 10-15 mins for revision is a must. This should accommodate 5 mins buffer.
iii. 1st question will take 5 mins extra, you need to make up for the rest of the questions.
c. Stop analysing the questions and answers written post exam, its done deal. Conserve energy to focus on next paper.
Next issue, we will cover the important topic on Anger and its management. This will include maintaining healthy relationships.
…. To be continued.
