One issue which seems to plague students of all age groups is silly mistakes. No matter how bright a student seemed, he/she inevitably lost a fair few marks due to silly errors, and with how razor-close some students get to meeting the conditions of an Oxbridge or medical offer, this is an issue that needs to be rectified.
For a more traditional approach to dealing with exams/stress see here and here for my previous thoughts.
This week I want to discuss one left-field remedy to the problem.
Meditation.
Hold up Usman! What is this hocus pocus? Meditation, this is the 21st century, not the Stone Ages.
Clear your mind of any preconceived ideas you may have about meditation. It is not just some hummm hoo-hah, that Tibetan monks do. If you follow the works of any vaguely successful individuals you will see that they incorporate meditation into their daily routine. From Arnold Schwarzenegger to Bill Gates. They all do it.
But why?
For the vast majority of history, meditational practices were usually associated with religious traditions, praying in Islam, counting blessings in Christianity, recitations of Mantras in Hinduism etc. However, nowadays even diehard atheists are promoting it as a holistic health activity that everybody should engage in, trying to gain the benefits of spirituality from the very religion(s) they deride.
Why?
There is a mass of scientific literature which overwhelmingly displays the numerous benefits of meditation.
In one study, which was conducted at JAMA internal medicine, they found that meditating was as effective with dealing with negative emotions as commonly prescribed anti-depressants.
Ok, that sounds great, but how does meditating help with your studies and your grades, more specifically how will meditating reduce the number of silly mistakes that you make in exams?
Right, so what have the scientists found?
The most interesting discovery about meditation, for our purposes, is that it was found that meditating just 5 minutes a day for 8 weeks can actually change structures within your brain:
1. Meditation triggers growth in the posterior cingulate cortex. What is this area of the brain responsible for? Controlling where your mind wanders. Now, being able to efficiently control your thoughts and translate them onto the pages of your exam paper is a skill that we all want to cultivate.
Unfortunately, due to the social media era that we live in, our attention spans and focus have taken a severe hit and silly mistakes are a natural consequence of this. So getting more neural development in this area is key in decreasing the number of stupid mistakes you make.
2. The second brain-changing benefit of meditation I want to mention occurs inside the amygdala. Over here, meditating actually decreases cell volume.
WAIT!
WHAT? Usman I don’t want my brain to shrink what are you suggesting?
Hold your horses for a second, you might think that having a lot of development and volume in every area of your brain is a good thing but that isn't actually the case.
The amygdala is responsible for fear and anxiety. Fear of people, fear of spiders, and, most importantly, fear of exams all come from here. Again, fear and anxiety are big factors in making stupid errors so meditation is key in reducing the effect of these influences. And it's not just fear, meditation helps with stress as well.
Bottom Line:
Based purely on my personal experience with students, they typically tend to lose 5-15% of the marks at the top end due to silly errors. This often turns out to be the difference between an A and A*.
So having your life punctuated by daily prayers is pivotal in calming the mind. A calm mind is better placed to spot the "silly errors" under the tough conditions of the examinations.
Contemplating on your day acts as a form of purification from the constant bombardment of information from social media, schooling, and the wider world in general.
As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome on the topic.
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