Medical Investigations: Why produce much stress tests?

About three in ten students take notes under their knowledge because of stress and brain lock that grips during exams.

All this burden is largely due to performance anxiety: when we will evaluate our body reacts to respond in the best way possible; the autonomic nervous system is activated and adrenaline is released.

It is an adaptive mechanism that has been functional for millennia, but today, when in most cases what we are asked is intellectual performance, alertness entry can harm us. Although some tension improves outcomes, beyond a certain level of stress, increased pressure decreases our mental performance.

The reviews also stressed by altering the daily rhythm. As recalled psychologist at the University of Deusto Rosario Morejon, an expert on stress in education, these tests require us to cognitive overload for the brain is not ready, vital intensive rehabilitation for a period that takes several weeks, and abandoned for lack of time relaxing habits such as exercise, travel and reading.

And get nervous in front of an artificial situation like this is inevitable. Professor Arturo Barraza, University of Durango, found that 96.8% of students suffer a sharp increase in anxiety in exam periods.

But how do you cope? Psychologists recommend changing the focus -take the test as a challenge and not as a obligation-; relaxation exercises about 20 minutes a day at least; use stop thinking, to avoid continuous and useless anticipation of problems, like "what if I stay white?"; and organize study time balancing work and time off.