The NottAlone Podcast
Real talk about mental health with Dr Orlaith Green and Dr Maddi Popoola
Series one, episode four: Coping with exam stress
Episode description
In this episode, Maddi and Orlaith discuss exam stress and talk about the strategies that can help young people manage their mental health during exam season and beyond.
We delve into what exactly exam stress is, how stress impacts mental health, strategies to manage during difficult times and how to empty your ‘stress bucket’. We discuss the pressure that society puts on young people when it comes to exams and share the voices of real Notts students to investigate what it really feels like for a young person taking exams today.
Transcript of episode
Music: Whatever you’re going through, I hope you know you are not alone…
Maddi: Ey up! Welcome to the NottAlone podcast. I’m Maddi.
Orlaith: And I’m Orlaith.
Maddi: We are the co-founders of NottAlone. We’re both also educational psychologists and we’re both parents. We are so thrilled that you’ve clicked onto this podcast to join us as we delve into all things mental health and wellbeing.
Orlaith: Let’s face it, we all encounter challenges and tough times in our lives. So, we want to talk about these experiences in the hope it helps others and reminds you it’s okay to not be okay. No matter what you’re going through, you are not alone.
Maddi: We will be having real conversations about mental health. Some topics will be challenging and may be upsetting, so please do listen with care.
Orlaith: Hello and welcome, everybody. Today we are going to be talking about exam stress. So, we’re in the middle of exam season here in the UK at the moment, it’s a topical issue. We have been out and about this week speaking to young people who are in the middle of or just about to do exams in year 12 in schools in Nottingham. And Maddi’s been gathering some words of wisdom and also some questions and things that they would like help with.
Maddi: I have. It’s been an absolute pleasure and delight to spend some time with some year 12 students this week. So what we’re gonna do today is we’re gonna give our audience, our listeners, some feedback from young people and we’re going to think about what they’re asking us and some of the things that they’re worried about and see if you and I, Orlaith, can also help think about some of the helpful things, some of the solutions that they might use or I guess some of the triggers that they might be experiencing and some of the thoughts and the feelings that they might have around taking exams, most of which are very, very normal, and then also talk about where to get help if, if it’s needed.
Orlaith: Sounds good.
Maddi: So, let’s get into it. Enjoy the chat.
Orlaith: And you might be listening at the moment when you’re in the middle of exams. So, look after yourself and listen with care.
Music
Orlaith: So, Maddi, hello. We are talking about exam stress today, aren’t we? And we are hoping to give people information, advice and places to go if you feel like you need help during exams.
Maddi: Yeah, really topical, isn’t it, at the minute. So, I thought, if it’s all right with you, if we start with a bit of a question. So, what is exam stress? What does that mean? How might it feel? And what are some of the thoughts that you might have? I guess going into an exam. So, what I thought I would do is think about back to when we were doing exams.
Orlaith: Yes.
Maddi: Just, you know, a few years ago.
Orlaith: Very few years ago.
Maddi: Just a few.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: One or two maybe.
Orlaith: Yeah.
Maddi: Maybe 20 odd. And think about what did that feel like for anyone listening out there? So, you might be a young person, you might be a parent of a young person. I can remember sitting down to do an exam and I can’t remember any feelings of worry or stress before doing my exams. I think it’s just too long ago. And I can’t remember kind of feeling pressure or any of those feelings. But what I do really clearly remember is sitting down in that chair, and you’re often in, you know, you’re in a big hall, aren’t you? And there’s rows and you’ve got teachers who walk up and down them as you’re, as your kind of sat there. And I remember having this overwhelming feeling in my stomach of nervousness. It felt like butterflies. And I do really clearly remember at one point, and I think for me, where I was more confident in a subject, those feelings were less. I remember specifically my maths GCSE and knowing that it wasn’t my strong point and knowing that there was a chance that I might not pass it. And I remember turning the paper over and my mind went completely blank, and I had this overwhelming sense of, it was weird. It was like, it was like something took over my body and it just shut, shut down. My mind went blank. I got over it and I did the exam. But talking to young people this week really made me think about that feeling. It’s not very nice.
Orlaith: You know, when you asked that question just now, I had the exact same memory. So, I don’t remember any of my thoughts. I don’t remember, like, oh, I did this, and I did this. I remember that feeling as in a physical sensation. And it’s really interesting if we think about the fight or flight theory of strong emotions. Often when you’re in a really stressful situation, like an exam, and I remember it in the hall as well. So, like in the moment, just when you’re sitting, the thinking part of your brain switches off because of the stress hormones like cortisol. And you actually often don’t have a language memory associated, as in what you were saying or thinking. And you often always have this body memory. And there’s a really interesting book by a psychologist, van der Kolk, called the Body Keeps the Score. And it’s that the body remembers traumatic experiences. And so, a lot of the time your memory is your body, how your body felt. And it’s really interesting, isn’t it? Because a lot of the things that you can do to manage it are about making your body feel relaxed. And I think it makes sense when you think about it in that way that your body is having the stressful feeling.
Maddi: Funny you should say that. So, when I went to, I went to a school this week, as you know, I went and spoke to a group of, I think there were about 80 young people there and we were talking about this exact thing about that response. So, I guess we’d call it an anxiety response. One of the children, young people said to me, why does that happen? And actually, we really got into this idea of humans as hunter gatherers, as we know that when we work, you know, cave men and women, we had a response to a fearful situation because we had to survive. So, when we think about anxiety or that fear response, it’s really innate. It’s something that’s actually there to protect us. And what happens is sometimes we over or underestimate that fear and then our response is not necessarily linked to the enormity or less of enormity of the situation, if that makes sense. When we’re thinking about those feelings, it’s actually really normal, isn’t it? It’s really normal to have that anxiety response. So, do you want to just talk a little bit about flight, fight and freeze, Orlaith? And what those three things mean? And based on you as a person, you will naturally perhaps go to fight, flight or freeze more than one or the other. But you may respond differently in different situations. But I guess understanding that about yourself is important. So, should we talk about, I think what I was describing as freeze in my situation? So, do you want to talk a bit about that?
Orlaith: Yeah. So, it’s a normal stress response. I guess that’s the most important thing, isn’t it? If you have a stressful situation, your body reacts before and sometimes like takes over the thinking, the mind reaction. And it is all about survival. But what is your body telling you in that moment? It’s telling you this is a really important situation. There’s risk involved, it’s about survival and you need to do something about the situation.
Maddi: It’s that real like hunter gatherer response.
Orlaith: Exactly.
Maddi: Isn’t it?
Orlaith: Yeah. And in an exam situation it is a very important situation. You know, there is risk because you might do well.
Maddi: You might fail.
Orlaith: Exactly. It’s on you. You’re the one sitting there. So, all the ingredients are there to trigger this response. I guess that’s what I’m saying.
Maddi: Should I read you a few. Really interesting you say that. So let me read you a few of the things that young people at the school I was in said.
Orlaith: Yeah, so these guys are in year 12, so how old are they?
Maddi: Yeah, year 12, so 17.
Orlaith: 17.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: And they’re about to start their exams, or they’re in the middle of them.
Maddi: I believe they’re about to do some kind of end of year. End of year in the middle of prep.
Orlaith: Getting ready.
Maddi: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And it was really interesting because they were so there in terms of these feelings.
Orlaith: Good times to talk to them, then.
Maddi: Yeah, really good time to talk to them. And also, for them to have a shared experience, to normalise some of the feelings that they had. Because actually, when you look around you and realise that everybody is feeling this and it is really normal. I think that in itself is just, is helpful. We asked the question, what is exam stress? And some of the answers here, I’ll read them out. Being worried, feeling overwhelmed, feeling anxious, needing to revise constantly, but also relaxing and making sure my work is organised. Interesting. So, people were thinking about how scary it was in the feelings, but then also automatically coming up with some of the things they do to help themselves. Way too much stress is another one. Frightened, as we’ve said, your body goes to that place of fear. So, another young person here that’s put stress, fear, worrying constantly about how I’m gonna do. And also then in the situation, shall I change my answer? That’s a really interesting one, isn’t it? Because I think I remember that feeling too, of writing an answer down, especially in a subject you’re not as confident in and going back over it and thinking, oh my God, have I got that right? Have I done, you know, have I done it the right way? And it was really interesting in actually the difference between each individual young person. So, some young people were saying, I just don’t think about it. Like, I just deny it in my head and then ignore it for as long as I possibly can. Don’t think about it because that’s also a coping strategy, isn’t it? The response that we would link that to is flight.
Orlaith: Yeah, exactly. If you’re faced with a stressful situation, fight is address it head on, go for it. You’re using adrenaline to, like, make your muscles strong, to, like, bring lots of oxygen pumping through your heart into your blood. Ready to fight.
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: Flight is running away. Yeah. But you also use the adrenaline and the oxygen to run fast.
Maddi: Exactly.
Orlaith: And freeze is usually when you’re overwhelmed. And one of the young people talked about that, didn’t they? You did as well, about your mind went blank. Usually that is where the stress hormones, the adrenaline overwhelms your body, and you don’t know what to do. So, you just think, freeze. Not going to do either. That normal situation, if it takes you away from the threat, most of the time the body’s able to cope with that. A huge surge in stress, and then most of the time comes back down. And we’ve all been there. Like if you’ve had a car accident or you’ve been to the dentist, you’ve done something stressful.
Maddi: A job interview.
Orlaith: A job interview, you feel the stress, you come back down, you feel your body relax. The problem with stress is when it is extended over a long period of time. And I think that’s one of the problems with exam stress, because the time around exams is becoming longer and longer. We’re talking about mocks back in February when the exams might be in, like May, June, July. So as soon as you stretch the stress response over days and weeks, that’s when it starts to have an impact on your mental health. And your body’s not able to do the normal coping, which is big stress response and then big relax and it starts to come out in other areas like your sleep, your eating, your ability to think straight.
Maddi: Yeah, you’re right, because it becomes a daily rise in cortisol, which is our stress hormone, and then that daily rise in cortisol is a stressor on the body physically. Do you think then that now, as, say, potentially compared to when you or I were taking exams, you know, just a couple of years ago, nod, nod, wink, wink, that there is more of a big deal made about exams. Like, is the language different? I do think there is a lot of pressure, particularly around passing GCSEs now, isn’t there? I did some research a few years ago with young people around their experience of school and their experience of the curriculum particularly. And one quote that always stands out to me, it was a young person who’d reflected that they feel like they’re a walking grade and that from the minute they go into school, they feel like, based on kind of how clever they are. There’s a prediction around them in terms of what they should be able to get. And then that remains a pressure from entering secondary school to, you know, to when they finish. And it’s almost, if you’re not meeting that expectation, the language around that can be very, very pressurised. So, it just made me think then about what you said about this exam period. But actually, this is actually, we’re talking about kind of the whole experience, aren’t we, really, of stress.
Orlaith: It’s interesting to differentiate between stress and anxiety, I think. And I think the stress for me really indicates the extended time period. What you’re talking about is making me think about anxiety and worries, which often are an added layer. So, there’s the stress, which is like pressure to perform, you know, pressure to get the grade. But then sometimes what you’re talking about is the expectations. So, worrying about letting your teachers down, letting your parents down, worrying about what if I don’t get this grade and then I don’t get onto that course. Or what if I don’t get this grade then I’m not gonna get my criteria for my apprenticeship. So that worrying into the future and mind reading, you know what other people think, those are some really common cognitive tricks that are linked to mental health difficulties like anxiety, aren’t they? And so, you kind of slip them out of the crisis stress response into some of the things linked to longer term anxiety. When you think about them separately and all happening at the same time.
Maddi: It’s no wonder.
Orlaith: No wonder.
Maddi: It’s no wonder that some of these comments are about feeling, feeling overwhelmed.
Orlaith: Yeah, but I’m interested in, from speaking with young people this week, did any of them give you a sense of why exams are so stressful? So, did they talk about that at all?
Maddi: Yeah, and a lot of that was around exactly what you just, just spoke about. It’s the fear of failure, fear of not achieving what, maybe what they expect of themselves, but then also the expectations of the people around them on them as well. So, it’s that fear of, of not, not being able to do it. Also, the fear as well of the situation. So going in and my mind going blank, for example, or me not being able to remember or letting myself down, letting others down. We talked a lot about this idea. All of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Those three things of course, are very, very linked. So, we talked about some of the perhaps tricky and negative thoughts that you might have around exams.
Things like, I can’t cope. I’m not good enough. I don’t have enough time to revise. I’m gonna fail. I’m gonna let everyone down. I feel as though I can’t manage. I feel like I need to give up. I feel like everybody else is better than me. That came out.
Orlaith: That young people shared, these are the thoughts they were having.
Maddi: Yeah, exactly.
Orlaith: It’s interesting because if you are an adult listening and you know a young person who’s going through this, I bet if you think you could identify the thoughts they have, because I bet they say them a lot. And this is one of the difficulties with these thoughts, isn’t it? We practise them a lot. It’s like a tune on an iPad, an iPod. Sorry, really showed my age there. But you listen to a tune over and over again, it’s becoming ingrained in your mind. You believe it more, it gains strength. So, yeah, I bet when you ask young people, they could like, say these things quite quickly.
Maddi: And what happens is these, these thoughts, what in psychology we call negative cognitions. It’s ultimately, it’s your mind playing tricks on you because of the fear response. So, when we feel scared about something, we often go to a place of what we call irrational thoughts, things that aren’t true, but you’re saying them to yourself. And what those thoughts do then is they create feelings. So, the thoughts are what we’re thinking in our head. One thing that we talked to the young people about this week was the idea that thoughts aren’t truth, they’re thoughts. They’re your thoughts in your head. Just because you’ve thought them doesn’t make them true. So, I think that’s one thing that we really need to get across today. So, if you’re a young person, or if you’re a parent of a young person who is having some of those negative cognitions, just because you think them does not mean that they’re the truth. What they then do is they lead to those feelings that become overwhelming.
Orlaith: And that’s the physical response that is really hard to manage, isn’t it? Feelings.
Maddi: The feelings then become physical responses. So, say you have feelings, for example. Some of the things the young people shared are fear, worry, dread, worthlessness, hopelessness, feeling overwhelmed. So, imagine those are the things. So, you’ve got this thought of, I can’t cope, that makes me feel overwhelmed. And then the physical sensation linked to that. Some of the things they said was feeling sick, heart beating faster, getting a headache, sweating, difficulty concentrating, feeling really tired and exhausted, and loss of appetite, loss of sleep. So those three things are very, very linked. And then what happens is we have the idea of behaviour, what we do. So, we’ve got what we think. We’ve got, then what that leads to in terms of our feelings, our emotions. We’ve got, then the physical sensations that are associated to that. Then we’ve got our behaviours. So, things like working really, really late and not being able to actually get much done, procrastinating, struggling to sleep, avoiding doing certain tasks. Avoiding is a definite coping behaviour, isn’t it? I avoid cooking. Just putting that out there.
Orlaith: Because you find it stressful?
Maddi: I find it very stressful. It makes me feel overwhelmed. It makes me feel like I’m not good enough. So, I avoid it at all costs. It’s a good job I have someone in my house who can cook. Not doing things that you enjoy, becoming withdrawn, spending time alone and struggling to make decisions. So, they’re some of them the negative behaviours. And you can see the pattern, can’t you? From thought that negative cognition to a negative behaviour.
Orlaith: You know, the things that you just listed there. So, I was just speaking with a friend whose daughter is doing exams. She’s midway through the exams and she’s done about 23 exams in a few weeks. So, she’s saying it’s like a physical test of stamina, as in, you know, your body’s physically tired, but all of those things you just listed are working against you physically, aren’t they? You’re not sleeping, you’re not eating properly, you’re up late, you’re looking at, you know, your eyes are open too long, you know, you’re probably not going to the gym that you usually go to or not to your, you know, your sports training. The really, really tricky thing about those negative thoughts is they trick you into feeling a certain way but then they start to make you behave in such a way, so they reduce your stamina to do the tricky thing. So, they’re really, really sort of sneaky.
Maddi: It’s a cycle, it’s a definite cycle of making things worse for yourself.
Orlaith: Absolutely.
Maddi: So, I guess on that then, what I think would be really helpful Orlaith, we could now think about. Okay, so let’s think about all of those things that we know are good for us in terms of our wellbeing and making sure that we manage that stress. How to understand ourselves in terms of what our, what we call like our stress bucket looks like and the feelings associated with that getting full. But then what are the things that we punch in the bottom of the stress bucket to let out, let out the stress. So, the things that we need to do for our wellbeing. So, one of the things that I really remember learning about at some point during my existence, that the brain actually can only really truly concentrate for about 20, 25 minutes tops. And that may even be a little bit less for somebody who’s say 15 or 16. So first of all, this idea of sitting down and revising until late at night.
Orlaith: For hours and hours and hours.
Maddi: And hours, it doesn’t work. The best way to revise based on what we know about the brain. And this, don’t get me wrong, this is not blanket, it’s not the same for everybody. But most people will benefit from 20-minute bite sized bits of revision and then a break. And what would you do in a break? You would get up, move, do something physical, you know, maybe even put the TV on. Do something completely different to what you were doing before. I think there’s another trick which is the mobile phone which makes us believe we’ve had a break because we’ve looked at our phone instead of looking at our maths book or whatever it is. But actually, a break is something quite different, isn’t it?
Orlaith: Yeah. Especially if you’re on your phone, you’re checking your WhatsApp’s with your friends who are also a bit stressed and they’re also studying or if you’re on social media, your phone algorithm will know that you’re doing exams at the minute. You might be looking at a lot of exam content.
Maddi: Yeah, Collective stress.
Orlaith: Collective stress.
Maddi: It’s not just your stress then, it’s everybody’s, isn’t it?
Orlaith: Because it’s interesting what you were saying as well about the thoughts. The thoughts are not necessarily truth because some of the stuff. I think one of the tricky things in figuring out how to make yourself feel better is some of the thoughts that you have during exam time, they are true. So, for example, you know, I need two A’s and a B to get onto that course. Like that is true. So, for some of those thoughts it’s helpful to think to what extent am I going to let this control my life? Do you know what I mean? So, to what extent am I going to worry about this? And actually, what I can do is like you said, I’ll do my 20 minutes, then I’ll go for a walk. Do you know you can do those things? It’s not a good use of your time and energy worrying about what if I don’t get the grades. That’s just pure worry. Do you know what I mean? You can’t change the fact that you need those grades to get on that course. But what you can do is think about some really evidence based tips and ideas about how to study, how your brain works, how to keep yourself physically fit, how to keep yourself connected as well.
Maddi: Yeah. So, I think that, that’s one of the things that we, we spoke about this week as well as the idea of talking to somebody about how you’re feeling. Because if you share those feelings of stress, they will naturally be less. When we talk about something as humans, when we have a conversation, this is why we do it, you know, we go, we have a problem, we talk to a friend, don’t we? You know, it’s a very kind of very simplistic but very common thing that we do when we’ve got a problem. And the reason that we do that is because it makes us feel less stressed. It makes us feel like the problem is halved for want of a, you know, a less cheesy.
Orlaith: A problem shared is a problem halved.
Maddi: Exactly. But what you’re talking, I think there about, is there’s something about realistic targets as well? So, you know, setting yourself a target of three hours’ worth of revision a day, for example. Yeah, you might, you might, you know, feel better because then you feel you’re putting the work in. But is that really effective? Well, actually three hours, okay, 20-minute slots with 20-minute breaks is a much more realistic target in terms of, terms of what you’re actually going to input and learn. Some of the other things that we can do to deal with exam stress, as we’ve said, talk to somebody, take breaks, relaxation techniques. Let’s just cover that for a moment because that’s something that we talk about. I’ll be honest, when people talk to me about relaxation techniques, I kind of roll my eyes a little bit because I don’t feel like it works great for me.
Orlaith: But what about start with what makes you relax and what makes you switch off. So, for example, so I grew up playing sport and I know that sometimes during exam times, people, they don’t go to their sports, they don’t go to their training, or they miss a few matches. Because maybe they’re A: worried about getting injured very sensibly, but B: they feel like they should be studying. But actually, for me, going to do my sport helped me to relax because I could focus on the, it’s a physical thing. I could focus on that for an hour. I didn’t think about the study, I didn’t worry about what exam was the next day and it forced me to have a brain break. So, for me, you might not call that relaxation activities. It’s not like deep breathing, you know, have a bath. It was actually quite active, and you know, it sorts of got my heart rate going, but for me it helped me to relax and switch off from the exams. So, I think it’s about that, isn’t it? It’s about. It really is your. What gives you the break, what switches you off, what helps you to just focus on something different.
Maddi: Exactly. And the individual differences in that is something that, you know. Absolutely. We can’t, we can’t. There’s no blanket way for people to achieve that sense of relaxation. And I think that when we talk about relaxation techniques, you kind of conjure up images of, you know, ommmm and deep breathing and all those kinds of things which personally, for me, I wouldn’t have never, ever found effective. But however, going on a run.
Orlaith: I was going to ask you what works for you.
Maddi: Yeah, going on a run, I guess that’s my mindfulness. So again, when we talk, use that term, mindfulness, actually what that means is it’s. It’s becoming into a place whereby you are being kind to yourself through just focusing on something you love, enjoy, makes you feel good, you know, takes you to a place of complete or well away from, I guess the idea of exam stress or whatever it is that you’re caught up in and worried about.
Orlaith: Absolutely.
Maddi: It’s distraction, isn’t it?
Orlaith: Yes. It’s distracting yourself, something that grounds you as well. Do you know what I mean? Because like you were saying, the phone, it distracts you for a minute, but you’re not necessarily grounded. But if you do, you know, you love running, you do that, you feel like yourself. It’s a bit of normality. Because exam times are a weird time, aren’t they? The normal routine’s gone out the window. For someone else it might be, go for a walk with the dog. Or someone else it might be, go and have a coffee with your friend. You know, whatever grounds you, makes you feel present, like yourself. Not Orlaith, who’s in the middle of exams, but Orlaith. The usual Orlaith. That’s the kind of thing that you need to just remind yourself of the bigger picture during exam time.
Maddi: Exactly.
Orlaith: Because your world can become really, really small.
Maddi: Small and focused on. On one particular period or point, point of time in your life. And if there are any young people listening, you know, from. I guess from older people have been. Have been through exams and you know, it is really hard, and it’s supposed to feel hard right now. However, it’s not the be all and end all. I wanted to say that today. Cause I feel like children are told that it is the, you know, it really is if you don’t pass or if that, or if that. And actually, you will find your way regardless of you know how you perform in these exams. So, I guess what I’m saying is if it does get to you too much and you do mess it up, that’s okay. It really is okay. Like you will. You will find a way. I’m going to read out a couple more of these. Is that all right?
Orlaith: Yeah. These are things that young people you met this week told you helps them.
Maddi: Helps them, but also just how they feel about. How they feel about their exams.
Orlaith: Okay.
Maddi: And what really interests me is the difference between one from one person to another. So, this one said, it’s an adrenaline rush and I find it really exciting.
Orlaith: And that is.
Maddi: Isn’t that interesting?
Orlaith: That’s the stress response.
Maddi: Right.
Orlaith: Because what we actually find when you’re sitting in an exam hall and you get that adrenaline rush, adrenaline actually helps you to focus. It helps you to zone things out. It has that impact on you where it can really improve your performance, can’t it?
Maddi: And again, there’s a reason why that’s there and it is linked to performance, isn’t it? All the way back to when we were killing woolly mammoths to survive. Right?
Orlaith: Yeah. But it’s such a fine line, isn’t it? Because it doesn’t take much to tip it into fight, flight, freeze.
Maddi: Yeah, yeah. So, this is really interesting. So, one young person wanted to know, how do you help someone else?
Orlaith: That’s a really good question.
Maddi: So, if you are a young person, you’ve got a friend who’s struggling with exam stress and you know that they are, what do you do? How can you help them?
Orlaith: Well, I would say so, you know, at the start of the conversation and we talked about how did you feel when we had exams, and you started talking about butterflies in your tummy? And I was listening, and I was like, I felt exactly the same and I just felt like we had a connection there, that we’d been through the same experience. So, if you are doing exams or you’ve been through exams, listen to what it’s like for them and tell them the things that you felt that are the same. This idea around not alone, it comes back again. Help them to feel like they’re not alone. They’re going through something that other people have been through. And then what comes from that is you’ll come out of it; you’ll get better. Even if it’s a disaster and you fail this exam, there’s another way around to find your way where you want to go. So, I would say that to listen to them and try and find the shared experience, definitely.
Maddi: When we’ve got a friend who’s going through something and we’re worried about somebody, I think we really naturally try to go to find solutions. So, have you tried this? What about this? And actually, most of the time what people really need is somebody to just sit with them in the moment. So again, if you’re a parent of a child who’s stressed about their exams, and believe me, I do this myself often, you know, my daughter will come in, into my room, usually about half 11 at night, stressed about something, and she’ll need to cry or offload. And I often go straight to, well, I mean, if I’ve usually just woken up and just half asleep, but usually I’ll go straight to, okay, well, we can do this, we can do this, or we can do this, we can try this. And actually, no, none of that is what she needs. She needs me to just sit with her and let her talk, let her tell me how she feels. And for me to say, I understand that I understand that sounds hard and I maybe give an example of when I felt like that too. Like you said, you know, share an experience and she just needs that time and space. And I think if, you know, if you’re a parent of a child who’s struggling, I think all you can really do is, is sit with them in the moment and share the stress, isn’t it? One of the other things that came up this week was a young person who’s asked us to talk about what if you’re not stressed about your exams? What if you just don’t feel anything?
Orlaith: Are they saying that because they feel prepared and confident and they’ll be fine?
Maddi: Yeah.
Orlaith: Well, that’s great.
Maddi: Yeah. But I guess, you know, when you’re in a room of people and everybody’s saying, oh, yeah, you know, I’m stressed about this, or this is how it makes me, me feel. And I’ve been worrying about this and, and you’re sat there thinking, I’m pretty chill.
Orlaith: That’s really important because I would ask, I would say to that young person, so what have you done to make yourself feel like that? Because they will have strengths that they’re drawing on to feel like that. That’s not just like, luck, or you know, stress doesn’t bother them, they’ll be doing something in the last few weeks or in the, in the, in the immediate situation to feel like that. And the reason for that is I worked with this school before secondary school, and they did this after exams, and I thought it was brilliant. Loads of schools do treats and trips and stuff after exams, but they did these debrief sessions with the kids and they said, when you did the exams and you felt worried, what did you do? So, when you went to maths, I know you were really worried about maths. How did you do it? How did you manage it? Because it sounds like you’ve done well. And actually, reflecting on the tools that you use to cope is important because when that person is not worried about exams, is going for a job interview and they feel really worried about it, they can look back and remember, when I was not worried about my exams, it’s because I was prepared. It’s because I kept my daily routine as much as I could. It’s because I made sure to walk the dog every day because that gave me some fresh air, you know, it’s because I made sure to keep talking to my friends about how they were and we are all connected together because there’s something there working, right.
Maddi: That brings us really nicely onto this kind of analogy of the stress bucket, doesn’t it? So, one of the things that we wanted to kind of bring today was this idea that we all have a bucket and imagine that bucket is a different size for everybody. We’ve all got a different size bucket, and we’ve all got different things in our lives, as we kind of said at the beginning, didn’t we, that add to that bucket of stress. So it could be that you’re a young person and you, you know, you. You kind of are quite happy in life. You know, you’ve got quite a settled family or, you know, you’ve got good friendships, you’ve got good relationships, you enjoy school, there’s lots of positive things. And then exams come in and bang, there’s some stress there. So, something you can do to deal with that and to help yourself is to put holes in the bottom of the bucket through things like going on a run, doing some exercise, doing something that you love and enjoy. And then what happens is the stress that’s coming in then filters out of the bucket, right? So, we have what’s coming in, we have what we can do to ensure that those things are then flowing out. And that’s exactly what you were just talking about, that one person who perhaps doesn’t feel as stressed, maybe they’ve got lots of holes in their bucket because they know how to release it, they know what to do. I guess what we really need to be really mindful of as adults, as parents and yourselves as young people is if your bucket is overloading. So, I think spilling out the top.
Orlaith: It’s spilling out the top.
Maddi: And if it is. So you might have exam stress, you might split up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, you might have had relationship difficulty with a friend, you might have difficulties in your family, you might have had a trauma or a loss, and there might be things that are building up in your stress bucket and exams are then coming on top of that and you’re starting to feel that every day, overwhelmed, can’t cope. You know, some of those kind of more extreme statements that we’ve talked about, and first thing I want to say about that is talk to someone, because that’s the hole in your bucket.
Orlaith: We were just talking about this campaign that we saw this week, weren’t we, by a charity, Papyrus. So, they have this idea of hashtag exams no, silence, please. If you are feeling any of these things, speak up. So, speak to a friend, speak to someone at school, speak to your family, or go on to nottalone.org.uk and speak to some of the support services that are there. It’s so important, and I think it’s really important to know as well exactly what you’re talking about, Maddi, that if you’ve got things going on in your life that are impacting on your mental health, exams and tests are a really common trigger point for overflow, for feeling worse because of some of the things we talked about. Which is your world gets very small, your mind starts playing tricks on you, you maybe don’t have as much sleep as you usually have. So, some of those problems, like, that you were talking about, they could feel a bit worse during exam time because of all of the other pressures. So, I guess going back to the young person you were talking to, Maddi, who said, what can I do? The other thing I would say is keep an eye on your friends, check in with them, you know, see how everybody is. And if you notice someone’s not. Not doing very well, just check in with them, ask them how they are. You know, say, do you want to have a chat? You know, keep an eye on everyone at this time.
Maddi: Yeah. And be kind to yourself. It’s so important to just be kind to yourself and keep putting those holes in the bucket. Keep, you know, doing the things that you know. And sometimes you almost have to force yourself to do things that you know you’ll enjoy, but at the point of trying to do them, you feel like you’re procrastinating, or you feel like you shouldn’t be doing it because you should be revising, or you should. Those things are just as important as the revision. They’re just as important as the hard work. Because working on you is working on you getting through these exams.
Orlaith: I wondered, to sort of close off the conversation, whether the young people you spoke to had any ideas or examples of things that helped them.
Maddi: Yeah, they were amazing. They. A lot of them talked about some of the things that we’ve been talking about. Listening to music was a big one.
Orlaith: Okay. A bit like our conversation with Simon.
Maddi: Actually yeah.
Orlaith: It helps you to sort of process strong feelings and it gets you in a sort of a space of feeling, just present with the music. That’s another example, isn’t it? You’re just. You’re there, you listen to your favourite song just for. Even if it’s three and a half minutes, you’re not thinking about revision.
Maddi: Yeah. A couple of them talked about writing things down as well, so journaling, I guess, a diary. Because we, we kind of did a couple of focus groups afterwards and we talked about some of these idea of talking to each other. And actually, it was interesting because some of them kind of said, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t speak to anybody because I don’t want people to see me cry. Which made me feel a bit sad, I’m not gonna lie, because I thought, well, actually, crying’s good. Like it’s a good thing. Come on, let it out, you know. But I guess depending on your age and stage as well, you know, that might feel. That might have been embarrassing to cry in front of somebody. And I get that completely. So, they talked a lot about writing things down, journaling, writing down how they feel.
Orlaith: You know, those thoughts, those negative thoughts. I can’t do it. They’re good ones to write down, aren’t they? Because you can look at them then and you can do loads of stuff like rip the page out of the book, scrunch it up, throw it in the bin.
Maddi: That’s so funny. That’s literally exactly what one young person said. Write it down, rip it up, throw it. Throw it in the bin. So, we did. We left them. We kind of went. You know, went over time, as you do, but we left them with an activity that I think will be helpful to kind of leave. Leave this with as well, is this idea of. So, we’ve talked a lot about thoughts, feelings and behaviours. So, one activity that. That you can do if you are feeling in a bit of a stuck situation, is to write down some of the thoughts, notice them. Notice what thoughts you’re having about yourself when you’re in those moments of stress and worry because if you can notice the thoughts, you’ve got a really good chance of being able to change them into something more positive, which then sets off you off on a very different cycle of behaviour. So instead of thinking, I can’t cope, think about, I coped really well when. Think of a time when you coped really well. Write that down instead. Use that as the thought that then influences your behaviour. Yeah, it’s changing those cognitions. It’s changing the cognitions. And then if you can do that, you can often then get yourself into a cycle of much more kind of positive thinking about yourself.
Orlaith: So, Maddi, I have a question to ask you.
Maddi: Oh no.
Orlaith: Just as you’re talking there, what would you say?
Maddi: I’m scared, guys.
Orlaith: What would you say to your teenage self, who’s sitting in that exam hall? I’ll answer it as well. Feeling those butterflies in the tummy, knowing what you know. Now, if you could say one thing to her, what would you say?
Maddi: Oh, my God. To little Maddi? I would say you’re good at lots of things. That’s what I would say. You’re good at lots of things. Because I think when you sat there and in that maths one particularly, it was the fear of being rubbish at something and not, you know, not. Not being good. And actually I’ve. As you. As you get older, you realise it’s okay to be really bad at lots of things. That’s okay. It’s not normal to be good at everything. And I think that that bothered me the most is that I felt like I wasn’t good at it. So, yeah, it would be. You’re good at loads of things. What about you? Go on.
Orlaith: I would say.
Maddi: Come on.
Orlaith: I think I would say to myself, this is not the whole story. What we were talking about today, about the world getting smaller, the pressure. You’ve got to get a certain grade on this exam. I think I would say now to teenage Orlaith, this is not the whole story. This is just a piece of the story. You know, try and sit back, see the bigger picture and don’t put too much pressure on this particular moment.
Maddi: 100%. Just be you. Be authentically you, you know, and who you are and be true to that. Because you’re not a maths exam, a history exam, a geography exam, whatever it is, does not define you. You do that for yourself.
Orlaith: Great. So, thanks for listening, everybody. It was really good to hear the voices of young people from Nottingham with their ideas.
Maddi: Thank you. Big shout out to the, to the year 12s at Djanogly City Academy. Thank you so much for your contributions to today. Much appreciated.
Orlaith: We discussed some heavy subjects today, so remember that you can find advice and links to support services on nottalone.org.uk. You are not alone.
Music: Whatever you’re going through, I hope you know you are not alone…
