Coping with Exam Panic Attacks?

UniGirlBot asks: "I am a distinction / high distinction student who normally doesn't have any major levels of stress during exams. Today I managed to have a major panic attack during an exam on databases and ended up leaving the room in tears about halfway through a 3-hour paper. This panic attack was an absolute first for me and I now have to begin the special consideration procedure, which I am grateful exists. For the record, I did study enough and the course was something I enjoyed doing. Does anyone out there have any advice on what I could do stop this from happening again, please?" If you've been in this position, how did you recover?

Comments

Emotional Detachment

[PrivateDonut]

Simply stop caring.

Re:Emotional Detachment

[drhlx]

Once your at the exam, even the night before, there's nothing you can do that is going to increase your knowledge

I disagree. For the vast majority of undergrad CS subjects, a day or two of revision was plenty. For the 'soft' subjects (management, etc.) a few hours was more than enough to memorise the buzzwords. Sure, it requires having been to the classes and knowing what's going on, but don't underestimate the marginal benefit of a few hours of targeted revision right before the exam. Particularly when lecturers set exams that are all-too-similar to the tutorial questions, past exams or textbook questions. If you're talking process-based subjects (e.g. differential calculus), a few hours may not help you. But a higher-level subject on project management? A few hours of dedicated study is all you often need.

Re:Emotional Detachment

[Fyz]

That's a good philosophy for any student. But telling a person that has panic attacks to stop caring is like telling a clinically depressed person to cheer up.

In fact, it can make the problem worse if they suppress their nervousness under a superficial shell and then crack completely under the real pressure of an exam, especially one you're not sure of passing. I thought all my life that I don't have this problem, that I could always keep my cool, but then I realized that this was just a front I brought up for the examinators, though under this surface I was a nervous wreck.

Now, knowing that I actually have a jumpy nerves, I can work on them using some of the techniques others in this discussion have mentioned.

Though if you have a real problem, the solution is very simple: take a beta blocker in the morning of the exam. Trust me, works like a charm.

Re:Emotional Detachment

[SanityInAnarchy]

That's a good philosophy for any student. But telling a person that has panic attacks to stop caring is like telling a clinically depressed person to cheer up.

It's a start, though.

Trust me, I know plenty of people who were suicidal. I learned some things. I learned that they don't really want to do it, or they would've succeeded already. I try not to tell them that, but it keeps me calm.

I also learned that, while it takes a certain amount of finesse, and the most effective approach differs from person to person. But no matter what the approach, the most important thing is to try. It's amazing how thoroughly these people convince themselves that nobody cares, and a real, serious, up-at-2-am-on-the-phone attempt to talk them out of it and keep them alive proves that someone cares.

So, in other words, telling a depressed person to cheer up may not fix the problem for life, but it will help at least now, at least for today, if done with consideration (not in a snarky slashdot post).

So, the trick would be to tell this person to stop caring, but not in an arrogant-Slashdotter way. Get their parents to tell them to stop caring, to tell them that it doesn't matter. Parents want you to succeed, but good parents will forgive you and help you when you fail (even literally).

Deep Breathing...

[thepropain]

with closed eyes. If possible, "step outside yourself" and see the silliness of it. Of course, im my book ain't nuthin' wrong with a shot and a beer before the test...

Shifting Gears

[FirmWarez]

When I was in the last couple of years of my undergrad -- computer engineering -- the way I'd deal with hard core tests (Calculus IV, control systems, etc) was by completely shifting gears right before the test.

Guys would always be cramming that last hour or so before the test. Look, if you don't understand how to do a Laplace transform you ain't gonna learn it 30 minutes before the test. To freak out then ya gotta be fracking crazy.

I have a lot of non-technical interests, and a big one is sports cars and sports car racing. I'd take a couple of car porn mags and read about sports car restoration or racing skillz in the common areas while watching every one else act like nut cases. It really calmed me down, and reminded me that I knew this stuff.

There's a saying in the world of professional soldiers -- you fight like you train. Same about tests. If you know the material and are comfortable with it you will test like you train.

Re:Pressure is a bitch

[aprilsound]

Agreed, but make that psychiatrist, not psychologist. There are physiological factors that contribute to panic attacks, and having an MD explain them to you can do wonders.

Plus, like the parent said, there are probably diet and exercise considerations that will help you out.

People can say "You shouldn't worry so much" and that sort of thing, but if that is all you needed, then you probably wouldn't be here in the first place.

At the very least, if you talk to a doctor, you'll be able to understand it better, and he/she'll probably tell you things you can do. Being able to do something will also make you feel better.

Don't stress, get sleep

[scdeimos]

YMMV, but as a survivor of several panic attacks over the years I have found that they've usually been brought on by combinations of stress and lack of sleep. My suggestions:

• Learn to compartmentalize: keep work/school worries at work/school, don't bring them home with you.
• Realize you what can and can't do: There will always be some things beyond your control, so don't worry about them.
• Don't lose sleep: If you're feeling tired during your days at work/school, go to bed earlier at night, try taking (natural) things to help you get to sleep like warm milk, valerian extract, whatever works for you.

Gee thanks

[HalAtWork]

Get a girlfriend (or boyfriend depending on your preferance), drink some beers, wine or whatever you like and enjoy college, this is your LAST chance. The real world is a lot tougher and a lot less fun until you become a billionare or die :)

My school teachers had always been telling students that elementary school is easy compared to junior/high school and that we had better enjoy it while we can because it was about to get a lot tougher. So I started dreading high school. Then in high school they started saying the same thing about college, and that college was as close as the real world could get in school, and that we had better work hard to get into the right one and do the right thing because our life depends on it, otherwise we'll be working at gas stations. So I started dreading college. Then in college they stopped holding our hand or putting guns to our heads to come to school and do assignments, so since I dreaded college and its assignments so much, to stop being stressed out I simply didn't pay attention to it because I couldn't handle the dread and pressure. Then I dropped out of college. Saying shit like "It's your last chance, it'll get a lot tougher!" is not going to make someone do something better, it'll simply impede them like it did me. Now I'm having a hell of a time.

Re:Or realize it's always fixable...

[Glonoinha]

Quite a few of the responses here are focusing on a particular symptom (the panic attack during the exam) and overlooking the context of the issue (the entire semester.)
Perhaps it isn't that he is being too hard on himself, but that he isn't being hard enough on himself (but doing it constructively.)

In the military there is a saying : "Train hard, fight easy."

What this means is - if you can condition yourself via repeated very difficult exercises to be able to operate and function in those difficult situations, you will be able to function under pressure. If your training (studying) is even more difficult than the situation you will encounter when it counts (battle, or the exam) then your exam will be easier (less stress, less pressure, easier questions) than you have been experiencing during training (studying) and you will breeze through it.

When I was a competitive swimmer (years ago) the longest race I ever swam was 200 meters - on competition day I might even swim less than that for the entire day : a 100m and a 50m.
But every day during practice I would swim upwards of 3200m over the course of an hour. The coach would yell at us, push us harder, have us swim laps with only our legs (arms behind our backs), have us hold folding chairs over our heads in the deep end while we used only our legs to keep our head, arms, shoulders (and the chairs) out of the water for ten minutes at a time. After a month or two of high intensity training, race day was something we looked forward to - not only to compete, but because it was the easiest day of the swim season.

Same thing with military guys. The guys that are calm and can function reliably when someone is shooting at them - they are calm because the ONLY thing they have to deal with is someone shooting at them. During training someone was shooting at them, a gunny was screaming in their face, they were doing push-ups / sit-ups until they puked, they were carrying around telephone poles as a team through pounding surf in the ocean, they were living on three hours or less of sleep per night for weeks at a time, and they were doing it all while eating grubs and worms and whatever crap the can find or kill or catch with no way to prepare it (under nourished.) Compared to how they trained, fighting on the battlefield is a cake-walk.

Effective studying in college isn't reading a book by yourself in the quiet library until your eyes glaze over.
Effective studying is creating an environment where you are mentally challenged by forcing yourself to demonstrate an understanding - a MASTERY of the material. Sit round robin with a few other students from class and go through the chapter, subject by subject, and have each person be the 'target' - the others ask him a question on the topic and he has to answer it, demonstrate his knowledge on the subject. Do not allow anyone to pass (skip a question,) force him to read the material until he understands it and can explain it to the satisfaction to the others. Let the questions get harder and harder, and pile on the peer pressure. Let the only response to 'I don't know' be 'well motherfucker you better figure it out now with the book in your hands and people here to help you learn it, because it is going to be on the exam.' The harder you are on each other during those study sessions, the easier the exam will be - for two reasons : during the exam it is quiet time without your peers putting the pressure on you (just you and the pencil and the paper), and also because you will have already worked through the thought processes in order to come up with the correct answers, not only for the questions you had to answer but for all the questions all the others had to answer - in watching them get it right or wrong, you will have seen several different perspectives and approaches on the problem, learning not only the correct answer, but the correct approach to get the answer. In doing so, you will have developed a mastery of the material and it will be obvious when you exhibit that mastery