Exam Stress and Rhythmic Breathing

Using Rhythmic Breathing to Deal with the Stress of Final Exams
Common sources of stress ("stressors") include parental expectations, homesickness, conflicts with intimate partners, thoughts of the future, and examinations (especially this time of year). Even moderate stress can cause behavioural changes! But let's talk about exam stress and how to help you with it.

The body does not distinguish between negative and positive stress: both excitement and anxiety strain the body's resources and depress the immune system. Stress varies in intensity and duration. Acute stress, such as writing a final exam, that lasts a short period of time, can rapidly exhaust you, even to the point of triggering anxiety attacks or a state of shock. Chronic stress, stress that extends over time, is a subtle condition. Your body may become accustomed to level of continual tension, but this stress will nevertheless cause damage over a longer period of time if sustained. Often we try to ignore chronic stress is until obvious physical symptoms such as high blood pressure, stomach problems, heart problems and so on start to appear.

One way to deal with the stress of exams or writing major papers is to change your perception from "they are an opportunity to fail" to "they are opportunities to show the professor how much you know". Another way to deal with exam anxiety/stress is to learn the THREE STEP RHYTHMIC BREATHING skills (aka: 3SRB or simply Rhythmic Breathing). Typically, students report back quick success with this skill.

A conscious and focused practice of Rhythmic Breathing will guide us back to this rhythmic way of breathing. The three steps are involved: technique, volume and rhythm

TECHNIQUE

• While breathing, both your chest and abdomen should rise and fall simultaneously.
• The chest will require more air because of the space created by the rib cage.
• The abdomen should not be blown up unnaturally during inhalation.
• To figure out if you are breathing correctly, get a friend to observe you or lie down before a mirror with two heavy books, one on the chest and the other on the abdomen.
• Check if both move together.
• Our habit of breathing from the lower part of the chest results in shallow breathing, depriving the body of much needed oxygen.

VOLUME

• When you breathe in, it is particularly important to note that the breath flows freely and fully from neck to navel. This simply means that the middle and lower abdomen should be filled to normal capacity.
• The volume of breath intake during 3 SRB should be the same as the intake during normal breathing.
• Continuous deep, heavy breathing can exhaust a person and is not recommended in 3 SRB.
• Initially, to establish the rhythm, your breath will be deeper, but once you are comfortable with 3 SRB and the volume of air that is to be drawn in, the breath will become normal.

RHYTHM

• To establish the correct rhythm of breathing, inhalation should take three seconds and exhalation two seconds.
• To keep to the pattern of rhythmic breathing, do not retain the breath between inhaling and exhaling.
• One complete breath takes five seconds or six pulse beats. The exact rhythm is to count 1-2-3 while inhaling and 5-6 while exhaling-4 is not counted.
• Unlike breathing exercises, in normal breathing rhythm, the duration of inhalation is longer than that of exhalation.

To master Rhythmic Breathing, you must consciously work to complete 12 cycles of breath in a minute. Inhale to the count of 3, exhale to the count of 2, and repeat the cycle 12 times in one minute. Initially, as you sit down to observe your breathing pattern, you will find that you probably breathe beyond 18 cycles per minute. This can be reduced to the mandatory 12 breaths a minute with the practice of Rhythmic Breathing. Another way to help develop Rhythmic Breathing skills is to breath in rhythm to Baroque or Classical music.

From BreathWise

The very cool thing about Rhythmic Breathing is that you can interrupt the sympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that helps initiates anxiety and panic attacks, so that you can settle down and do your best on an exam or paper. Most importantly practice Rhythmic Breathing when you are not so under stress in order to learn the skill. After some practice you will find Rhythmic Breathing easier to do under the stress of exams and papers.

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Dr. JJ Miles
December 1, 2008