Exam Overwhelm?….how hypnotherapy can help?

Hypnotherapy can help with exam anxiety.

Exam season is here again and you may know a young person at uni or about to take A Levels or GCSE’s who is struggling with exam anxiety. How can hypnotherapy help?

Healthy Stress

Some stress is good for us. It motivates us to achieve and tackle difficult tasks but too much stress can easily get in the way of logical thinking, focus, concentration, and processing. Learning healthy coping strategies helps students handle their nervous feelings and are skills for life.

Mind / Body Connection

Fear and anxiety are powerful emotions that slow down blood supply to the brain and other organs, producing the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline in response to a perceived threat. These hormones prepare us brilliantly for action in a real emergency but are not useful for exams!

What does Anxiety Feel Like?

People experience anxiety or nerves in different ways, including butterflies, tummy aches, sweaty palms, headaches, shaking, dry mouth, a sudden need for the bathroom, inability to sit still, or a racing heart. Many people have sleeping or eating issues and just having fun in the usual way may feel impossible. Chronic anxiety may be seriously detrimental to the student’s overall well-being and to their success.

Relaxation

Hypnotherapy induces a state of deep relaxation, allowing the entire nervous system to calm down, and alleviating the physical symptoms of anxiety. Self-hypnosis techniques can be taught and used when needed, even during an exam.

Visualisations

Guided visualisation exercises help students to imagine themselves succeeding in their exams. The unconscious mind can be fooled into thinking a good outcome has already happened.

Cognitive Reframing

In gentle trance, negative thoughts about exams and learning can be reframed and replaced with more empowering ones. Building inner self-belief at this deep level can be life-changing as it affects all areas of life.

Behaviour Change

People often behave differently if they think they will fail and will unconsciously ‘give up’. Changing how we think results in our behaviour also changing. This may include finding more effective study habits that suit our individual learning styles and maintaining a growth mindset so that we are also more motivated to study.

Power of Suggestion

Hypnotherapy techniques can be powerfully enhanced by suggestive recordings students can listen to when they need some instant support. These ‘word weaves’ tap into exactly what the individual student’s subconscious needs to hear and are a powerful part of my hypnotherapy ‘toolkit’.

All in the Mind

Cognitive Hypnotherapist, Alison Scott, commented, “Preparing for exams is not just about how much cramming of information we can manage but also about our state of mind. The ways we behave when studying and taking exams are based on the prediction patterns developed from past experiences. Our unconscious mind expects us to feel a certain way, and so we do. Hypnotherapy challenges the unconscious mind’s expectations, reduces negative emotions attached to previous experiences, and allows the mind and body to refocus and reach a calm and confident state.”