GCSE and A-level exam season in Bucks, Beds and Herts
A psychologist says it can be a stressful time
Students in Bucks, Beds and Herts are sitting their GCSE and A-level exams this week.
New research shows Maths, English and Science are the subjects which causes the most anxiety and stress.
Hannah Dunn is a psychologist. She said: "Speaking from my own experience of teaching, students are with us for two years and it's two years of intense study and for them how they perform in the end of year exam determines the next step in their life; their career, what university they get into and what job they have.
"Prepare yourself well for your exams and put yourself in the best position for them. We teach our students to organise themselves; throw out any notes you don't need, make sure you've got your class notes that you can read and just have a bit of a sort out of your paperworks.
"Stress is actually really good for you. There's a theory in psychology called the Yerkes-Dodson theory and it says there's an optimum level of stress that actually if you hit this it makes you focussed, it helps your attention, it makes you motivated, so quicker at writing and it makes you more creative.
"Parents should help to make sure they have somewhere quiet where they can revise so they can concentrate and focus and also the good old nutrition and sleep messages, like feed your brain healthy things when you're revising because you're using a lot of cognitive energy and then to sleep.
"There's some things that you can do whilst you're actually sat in the seat of the exam; plank your feet firmly on the floor, wiggle about in your chair to get comfy, breathe in for four counts, pausing for two and then breathing out for four counts.
"Physically slow down so pick up your pen really slowly, turn the exam paper over really slowly, write your name quite slowly. Just being slow in your movements is going to bring your biological stress response down just slightly so it's going to make yourself feel a lot more calm."