Breathing For Exam Success

Discussing 5 breathing techniques that are useful in calming the mind and body when preparing or during exams. We run through each method, allowing you to practice and find one that suits you. If you are serious about helping yourself for exams then allowing yourself plenty of time to use these methods can teach your brain and create neural networks that remember what to do in times of stress.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to grounding for exam success.

There are five research based grounding exercises and each technique will be introduced and I will run through each one very slowly,

Very simply,

And at times allow you the time to run through these exercises in your own mind at each point.

Perhaps after I've described each recording or each technique,

It may be a good idea to pause the recording to allow yourself the time to get to know the exercise and to continue each one as you so wish.

And in time you will find perhaps a technique that you find a favourite,

Easy to do or quite effective.

And so the first exercise is called the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique.

So the advice here,

First of all,

Is to find a comfortable position,

Just sitting or lying or being comfortable wherever you are.

And the evidence behind this technique is that sensory based grounding techniques have been shown to reduce anxiety and improve attentional control.

So basically what this helps us to do is to shift our focus away from any anxiousness that we're feeling into the present moment.

So I'm going to run us through this technique,

Looking at five things you can see,

Four things you can touch,

Three things you can hear,

Two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.

So,

Again,

Just taking a couple of lighter breaths and we shall begin.

As you sit there in your own space,

Either on your own or within a group,

Just be curious to look around the space that you occupy at the moment.

So looking essentially for five things that you can see.

That may be windows or doors,

Chairs around you,

Things hanging on the wall,

Light fittings.

But just taking your time to look at the colours and the shades,

Sizes of these five things.

And in your own time,

You can take as long as you feel with this.

But for now,

We're going to move on to four things that you can touch or sense with your body.

Maybe you can sense the body in touch with the ground or in touch with a chair.

Maybe your feet on the floor.

Some of you may be able to get a sense of the clothing around the body.

And perhaps if you're resting your hands on your legs,

You could sense that light touch between the two.

And just exploring how feelings happen within the body or sensations as you touch things.

And can we then move our attention to three things we can hear?

That might be just your own breathing.

If you're doing this on your own,

There may be noise or chatter within the room.

Or some noise,

People moving around in the corridors around you outside or perhaps the sounds of traffic.

Maybe even the weather.

But moving our attention to three things that you can hear.

And remembering in your own time to just take your own time,

No need to rush.

And now moving to two things that you can smell.

And it's not important that we identify two things.

Maybe you may have a cold,

You may have a blocked nose and some people have a limited sense of smell,

So we don't need to make this perfect or make it perfect.

We'll make this right.

But there may be a particular smell or fragrance where you are that you can just focus on for a few seconds,

Identify what it is that you can smell.

Remembering not to force anything to happen.

If there is or if there are no smells,

Then that's fine,

Too.

And lastly,

Moving on to one thing that you can taste.

Again,

This doesn't have to be anything specific.

It's just taking your attention into the area of the mouth and the nose,

Noticing if you can taste anything.

So you can use this technique before or during an exam.

The whole point is to shift the focus away from what you're feeling.

If you are quite anxious onto something that's quite present and you can take as long or as short a time as you as you feel with this.

And so we can move on to the second technique,

Box breathing.

Again,

Very simple,

Very easy to do and something that you will inhale for four seconds and then hold for four seconds,

Exhale for four seconds and then hold for four seconds and then repeat.

I'll just repeat for a few times.

But in your own space,

In your own time,

If this is something that you feel is useful for you,

Then you could practice this for as long as you like,

Maybe a couple of minutes before or during the exam.

And especially the evidence tells us that deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system.

That's the nervous system that is responsible and really helpful,

Actually,

For calming the body down,

Calming the mind down,

Reducing the stress hormones and improving cognitive performance,

Which is really quite important when it comes to exam time.

So box breathing.

Take a moment,

Get comfortable and please don't be trying too hard with this.

Please don't be trying to breathe too heavily.

Keep it natural.

Keep it free.

If you need to breathe a little more,

If you need to break away from the exercise,

Please do that as well.

So when you're ready,

We're going to inhale for four seconds,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

And now we're going to hold for four seconds,

Three,

Two,

One.

Exhale for four,

Three,

Two,

One.

And hold for three,

Two,

One.

Now,

Let's take a deeper inhale if we need to,

Three,

Four.

Holding for four seconds,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Exhaling for four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Holding for three,

Two,

One.

Inhale for three,

Two,

One.

Hold for three,

Two,

One.

Exhale for three,

Two,

One.

Hold for three,

Two,

One.

And continue in your own manner,

At your own speed,

As long as you want to,

Or experiment with this another time.

So we're moving to the third technique here,

Anchoring with touch.

And the evidence is that physical touch can reduce cortisol levels and increase feelings of safety and control.

Cortisol being one of the stress hormones.

So if we are sat in an exam situation,

This technique is quite useful.

I'm going to suggest that we use our forefinger and thumb.

And in a moment,

I'm going to invite you to cast your mind back in your own memory to a time where you were safe or happy,

Comfortable,

Might have been a holiday experience,

A family experience,

A friend experience.

As you think about that,

I will then invite you to press your thumb and forefinger together for about five or six seconds,

Almost when your imagination of this time in the past was at its peak in your mind.

And then imagine squeezing our fingers and forefingers together,

Almost placing this memory within the physical touch.

And the idea is,

Is that if we practice that several times through the day on the build up to our exams,

Once we're in the exam and we might feel a little bit overwhelmed at some point,

It's remembering to put our finger and thumbs together to squeeze,

Is almost triggering that happy event or the time when you felt safe and calm or with friends,

With people.

And also helping you to remind yourself of those times as well.

So sit back or lie down wherever you are,

Be comfortable.

And I'm just going to ask you to cast your mind back in time to a time or a place when you felt safe.

Or when you felt particularly happy and relaxed with yourself and those people around you.

So it could be a holiday.

Could be a time when you've been out with your friends or it could even be a time in your own special safe place somewhere.

And if something does come to mind,

Can we imagine that in the colours that we remember,

The blue sky or the colour of the room or what we were wearing?

Maybe even the sounds of that event.

And as it becomes clearer,

Perhaps for some of you,

It's then to squeeze your forefinger and thumb together just for a period of five to 10 seconds,

Whatever feels comfortable for you.

But just keeping that memory really quite vivid in your own mind's eye as we're touching our forefinger and thumb together.

And after about 10 seconds,

Just release the fingers and just sit there,

Maybe mulling over this happy or this safe event.

And then we can call the exercise to an end.

And what might be quite interesting is later in the day,

If you want to revisit this or to keep practising over and over,

Is to then just see what happens when you do press your finger and thumb together.

And does it have an activating sensation within the mind,

Triggering memories off?

And the whole point is that this memory is quite strong,

Quite vivid,

Explicitly safe,

Happy feelings that we're wanting to bring into the exam space if we are feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

And then we can come to the fourth exercise,

Progressive muscle relaxation,

And again,

Perhaps doing this before an exam to help to calm the body down.

The evidence here is that that progressive muscle relaxation is proven to reduce exam anxiety and improve focus.

We are priming the mind and the body using this progressive muscle relaxation.

I'm going to move progressively through the body from our feet,

Up through the legs and the hands towards the chest and the neck,

And we shall isolate and tense particular muscle groups.

And at the end,

We can just then relax everything and just notice how relaxation can spread throughout the body.

So taking the moment to find a comfortable position.

We're not wanting to try too hard here,

Remember,

And we're not trying to make anything happen.

But if we can start with our feet,

Maybe we could push our feet quite hard into the ground or to pull in our toes and just to hold them for about five seconds.

When you're ready,

Then we can just relax the feet and relax the tension on the floor and just noticing what we're feeling down in the feet area right now.

Now,

If there are sensations,

We're not trying to name them,

We're not trying to push them away or to to make these sensations last any longer.

What we're doing is moving to another part of the body.

Now,

Let's move to our knees,

Perhaps.

And maybe we could push our legs down into the ground while at the same time kind of feeling our knees tense up,

Maybe even pushing our knees together for five seconds.

And then suddenly bring that to an end and we can then move through to the thigh muscles again,

Pushing down or tensing those muscles for five seconds.

And as we're letting go,

We're just noticing any releasing sensations,

Any relaxing sensations,

And we can move up and around the body area,

The pelvic area,

And in your own way,

Pulling in and tensing and holding this area again for five seconds,

Or you may quite enjoy the whole tensing and relaxing.

You can do this for as long or as little as you want.

And as you just kind of releasing and relaxing those muscles around the pelvic area,

Then move towards the stomach,

Pulling the stomach in,

Holding tight and pulling everything towards the centre for five or six seconds and then release.

Maybe we could hold our hands in a fist,

Tighten as hard as we can again for a few seconds.

Moving through the muscles in our arms,

Holding,

Tensing,

Squeezing all the way through.

We could hold our shoulders tight up by the ears,

Pulling everything up towards the ears with our shoulders.

And when you're ready,

Just let the shoulders flop down.

Maybe we could just sit here,

Do nothing for a few seconds and take an inward glance or an inside feeling of how the body is right now.

Are we able to soften and soothe the body or just realise or be attentive to how we are feeling?

And so with this progressive muscle relaxation,

You just move through different parts of the body at your own time,

At your own pace,

With your own tension.

But it's a really useful way for bringing us into the present moment.

And now we move to the last one,

The pause and reset technique.

So the evidence here,

Brief mindfulness pauses improve cognitive flexibility and prevent mental blocks under pressure.

So it's got to be a good thing.

For many people,

Being mindful or practising on purpose,

Some of these grounding techniques,

It can seem like a bit of an effort or we don't find the time or we think it's not for us,

So doing something short,

Something easy,

Something really accessible can apply to a lot of us and something that we can access quite easily.

So,

Again,

I'm going to ask you to get comfortable,

Be relaxed and for just five seconds,

Let's just stop.

Nothing to do.

Maybe being conscious to take a deep breath in and a longer breath out.

And if you want to do that a few times,

When we have the longer breath out,

I wonder if you could say to yourself in your own mind,

I have time,

The answer will come.

I have the time,

The answer will come.

Or perhaps you could try different phrases that may just suit you differently,

For example,

As you breathe in and then ready for a nice,

Deep out-breath,

Just saying to yourself,

Nothing to do right now.

Or maybe one last one might be nothing to achieve in this moment.

And so by simply stopping,

Taking a deep breath,

Having a soft,

Kind word with yourself that in that moment,

You have nothing to do.

Yeah,

The answer may come.

But if it doesn't,

The whole point is taking a break,

Taking a move away from any perceived stress that you might be feeling.

So that concludes these five techniques.

You can pick and choose how and when you may choose to practice any of these.

But for now,

Thank you very much and good luck.