Exam Anxiety: The Science of Learning and Fear

The reason why we remember specific moments or movies is because they have been stored in our memory under the influence of emotions. When we win or fail, cry or celebrate, we learn fast, deep and plenty. But when we are afraid our brain limits our ability to think, for a good reason.

Fear is an emotion induced when we face a threat to our physical or psychological well being. It causes a change in brain and organ functions and ultimately in our behavior first we get stressed or aggressive, then we are left with three final ways out: freeze, fight or flight.

The reason for this is evolution. Over the last million years, we learn that when we meet a dangerous animal, we better freeze, fight or run and hide. To save our life this is now programmed in our genes. But something else happens.

When it gets dangerous a specific region of our brain, the Amygdala takes over. Its job is to protect us and save our life. To act fast it refrains us from thinking and leaves us only with those three options. This makes creative and critical thought processes impossible.

High pressure triggers a similar response. In one experiment, German neuroscientist Prof. Dr. Huether measured the brain function of young men playing a car racing game. The race was on and the men eager to win. When the researchers later looked at the scans of the brain they saw shockingly little activity. In fact, the young men hardly used their brains at all and they certainly didn't remember much.

Later the researchers repeated the experiment. This time they did not play the game themselves but just watched from inside the car sitting next to the driver. Instead of focusing to win, they focused on a lot of other things: driving behavior, race track, other cars. This time the brains showed lots of activity Learning happened and memories were created.

The scientists concluded that when we panic at a maths exam or when a salesman fears to miss his monthly target, it can create a tunnel vision. Then our vision field becomes smaller, our learning limited and we cannot find the road to success.

Next time when you are stressed to perform or when you panic during an exam, try this quick fix. First slowly breath in through your nose. To do it slow enough, count from one to five. Then breath out through your mouth, again counting to five. Repeat that for 1-5 minutes and your body will relax and your brain can switch from protection back to a learning mode.

SOURCES:

Manfred Spitzer about Cocaine & Porsche Car:

[theoracle]

NOWADAYS WE ALWAYS STUDY UNDER FEAR AND PREASURE... THANKS FOR THIS BRILLIANT INFORMATION, FINALLY AAAAH

[matejbarukcic]

O man the amount of work put in this video. You guys totally deserve bigger audience, hope you make it because you're not just some clickbait channel

[blackpixies]

I completely agree with how stress can effect studying. However, for me personally, it is a lot more difficult to relax. What works for me is surrounding myself with friends or family while I am studying so if I need to, I can look away from my work for a moment and have my friends cheer me on. It's a nice feeling. Like having a cheer squad in front of you.

[namirashabnom]

From someone who always performs poorly under pressure, thanks sprouts.

[sicktoaster]

I think that goals are important to having a fulfilling life. Trying to not have goals will just drive you mad. Every little thing that happens becomes more relevant since you have nothing in particular to look forward too and you wind up highly stressed by the most trivial things. But if you have goals that you commit yourself to you don't have to feel so strongly for anything that is irrelevant to your success for your goals.

This primitive response is only useful for short-term dangers, not long-term dangers such as failing to succeed at a goal. Remind yourself of that and learn through focusing on your breathing and posture and by practicing meditation to shut down or at least reduce the amygdala response when it isn't helpful. Think things through far in advance so that you can remind yourself that you have plenty of time and so there's no point in feeling afraid as long as you stay on task. Slow and steady wins the race. Slow yourself down so you think more and flesh out a problem for the best solution.

[Alexandra-yrqr]

this is so accurate..I have a huge exam tomorrow and I'm still learning/revising. I'm trying hard no to panic

[moonmancer]

I found that being to relaxed doesn't always helps, I have failed exams where I was too lazy to do it fast but I knew everything...

[harshanahar]

My learning from this video is
See yourself as a another person if you feel fear
Like you are just watching someone else doing it
It will relief you

[taigofr]

wonderful video! keep spreading the word!

[amazingkid]

study rest study this was the technique I followed for my last exam even when I had loads of syllabus but fortunately it worked everything stayed in my mind now I know why continuous and forced studying don't work .thanks for the video😊

[toppercent]

Teachings from this video is applicable to every exam or competition in the world.

[vaishlakshmanan]

I cannot agree enough! I have been down that road

[_mitsharma_]

people think without fear no one can rush toward the goal but u put beautifully that fear can enhance ur speed but influence your learning . I also feel the same

[khaledking]

Thanks a lot for the breathing trick, definitively gonna apply it

[marclm]

You guys are the best. Making such educational videos for free is so rare and so gold. If more people would do that, the world will change to good.

[anak_kucing]

I'm not tired yet about your English videos, I love british English.
Sometime some one said me that I can't be a native speaker but that doesn't matter for me.

[subharajsengupta]

I believe that one must fix the goals by making a daily routine for each and every day.But at the same time, one should take short breaks in between the working hours to stop overstressing the brain.It's like using the ping-pong theory which is discussed in one of the previous videos for learning something effectively.

[welcome-kh]

I am shocked that you don't have least of 1 million subs, you literally deserve more

[dokicgalgirl]

Very well explained...I work as a school counsellor and though I m aware about all the points but lot of times difficult to explain so well and in an interesting manner
To answer your Q asked at the end-it would differ from person to person..for some a schedule may help for others flexibility may get the best out them..."to each its own"

[sayantabanerjee]

I am sure these amusing lessons will armour ourselves with knowledge against our deep seated negative emotions. I love the way the storyboards demonstrate the manifestation of so many familiar emotions and behavioral traits. Knowledge is in era-change. Sprouts is contributing predominantly in that. Wish all the best.