Ug. I have an exam in 5 hours, and I haven't slept a wink. This always seems to happen when I'm faced with a difficult exam. The night before, adrenaline is pumping through my veins, and I can't seem to get any sleep. In a sense, I can appreciate that my adrenaline is there for a good reason, to keep me focused. But it's sort of a double edged sword when I can't sleep the night before an exam. :bugeye: It's just lucky that I've been well rested up until now!
That's a rather dysfunctional thing for your body to do to you, isn't it? The caveman inside you is misinterpreting the stimuli that you and the outside world are giving him. You need to figure that out and fix it for the next exam. Your adrenaline level adjusts itself very quickly. It doesn't have to ramp up five hours before it's needed. All that does is wear you out--or in your case actually deprive you of much needed sleep--long before you need the strength and focus. So if your body is reacting to the exam this early, it must mean that your emotions are doing the same, and sending it the wrong signals. Have you gotten in the habit of staying up late the night before a test, frantically trying to do all the studying you put off until the last minute? Your body remembers habits like that. Or generally in the days before an important test, is your circadian rhythm completely screwed up, keeping odd hours and not sleeping enough? Your body remembers habits like that. Are you insecure about your ability to do well on the test, so you lie awake worrying about having to explain to your parents that you failed a course, or having to leave the university and become a bog digger? Your body remembers habits like that. During the time leading up to a stressful event, you have to discipline yourself to do the things you need to do, instead of the things you want to do. Get a reasonable amount of sleep, keep regular hours, eat regularly and correctly, and get enough exercise. I wonder if you've been doing too much sitting and not enough working out, so your body isn't physically tired? Also, have you been indoors too much, hitting the books, so your body isn't getting its solar-spectrum light to produce melatonin and regulate its own circadian rhythm? If none of these are true, and it's just a case of worry and anxiety, you should just try some mental exercises to put your mind at ease. Vipassana yoga meditation is pretty good for that, and most people can do it successfully the first time, rather than putting in months of practice. There are also lots of relaxation tapes available, a soothing voice talking you into taking your mind into a more serene place and doing some lying-down isometric yoga that loosen up your smaller muscles so you can nod off before the tape completes. And I know everybody is waiting to hear me say this: Having a dog with you can be very relaxing. Dogs are really fabulous role models for taking it easy and not worrying about tomorrow. Your dog will notice your tenseness and do his best to work you out of it so you can both kick back.
Hah, the exam went 'OK'. I know that I aced the MCQ's (worth half the mark). In fact, they were much easier than I predicted, although I still had to guess a few. I think I studied some of the material in too much detail. The written/essay portion was just too long. Even though I'm in my third year, I'm still having trouble trying to put the appropriate amount of detail in. I was writing like a maniac, but I still didn't finish in time. I think I made a few fundamental errors because I was so rushed. Shit. And my handwriting went to the shit after one hour (remember, I have some RSI in my hands). However, two things reassure me: 1. I've aced the non-exam course work. The lowest mark I have received was for a group essay, where the editor totally mangled the final version (without our consent). 2. 95% of the individuals in my course are more retarded than me (I'm serious here... I'm one of the few who actually studies throughout the semester. They whined like bitches when they found out that are two core subjects were on successive days). So standardization will probably save my ass. I might be an average student, but that makes me a fantastic student when compared with the lot in my course. I've got another exam tomorrow at 9:30. I've studied for that one far more than the one that I just had, although I'm still worried that it will totally rape me. Despite the fact that I make an effort to study throughout the semester (and scored 98% on the mid-semester), everything just slips out of my head.
Fraggle: Yeah, I know. It's not good that I only had a few hours sleep. I'm a nervous person by nature. I suffer from a lot of stress related psychosomatic disorders, like IBS and nausea. No, I never to do that. I always value a good sleep over a bit of last minute cramming (I'm always in bed by 11pm before exams/assessments). And even if I wanted to cram, I'd wake up early in the morning for some last minute revision. Of course I'm concerned about failing. What student isn't!? I don't think I've ever met a calm, collected student. Added to which, I don't just want to 'pass'. I want a good GPA so I can transfer out of my dead end course. That's probably another problem. I find it a little hard to do physical exercise at the moment, due to an injury. I try to let some light into my room, but it's winter up here. I'm not allowed to have a dog where I'm renting.
