Punch Fear In The Face

Seeing as most people I know are studying for exams at the moment, I think it is the perfect time to blog about FEAR.

From a very young age, people have perceived me as the confident person who will volunteer to put herself through most situations that are embarrassing or out of one’s comfort zone. For the most part, I do fit that description. However, I think my confidence usually relates to situations where I know I won’t kill myself. Need someone to give a speech? I’m ready. Need someone to walk up to a stranger and ask for directions? I’m there. Need someone to dress up as a pineapple and hand out flyers to a juice bar? Call me. 

Isn’t there anything I fear in life? Of course there is. Everyone fears something. In my case, there are two situations in life that smash my self-confidence and composure: EXAMS and ISSUES OF HEALTH/WELLBEING.

I go through life with a general sense of happiness and optimism but mention the word exams and I’m a hopeless wreck. When it comes to exams, I literally worry myself sick (even though I know they can’t kill me) and the anxiety can become very debilitating. Luckily, I have learned to control it a bit but it is not easy. And I know some friends who suffer far worse exam anxiety issues than I do. Here is a list of symptoms I have experienced due to exam stress:-

• Fits/Seizures
• Loss of breath
• Diarrhoea
• Suicidal thoughts
• Memory loss and total blank outs

Here is a list of some issues I have witnessed people I know go through due to exam stress:-

• Temporary paralysis of an area of their body (most cases it’s one of the hands or arms)
• Fainting
• Vomiting
• Appendicitis-like symptoms
• Aggression
• Mental Breakdown & Depression
• Attempts at suicide

It’s painful to write all these things down but it’s something I feel is very common amongst students. And if you’re reading this and you’re anything like me when it comes to exams then I have  some tips to get you through this:-

1) You’re not alone

Your friend may be feeling the same forms of anxiety as you are but is afraid to talk about it. Don’t be shy to share these feelings. It’s perfectly normal to go through exam anxiety. Don’t keep the stress bottled up. I have known  fellow schoolmates who ended up in mental institutions or attempted suicide due to exams. IT’S NOT WORTH IT. There are so many resources to help you out. The University of Malta organises stress anxiety courses prior to exam season. Councillors are always available to listen to you. You can discuss course material with your lecturer too. There were times my classmates felt we were being given unreasonable amounts of work to do or study. Some lecturers even used to ask us if we’re feeling stressed or not. If your request is legitimate then your lecturer will understand. If your request is really legitimate but your lecturer is unfair, contact your student council or student representative. There’s always someone ready to represent your case.

2) Stay Healthy

Remember, your health comes first. And if your anxiety is so unbearable that even talking to people won’t help then find a doctor you trust and who you can visit during exam periods. This doctor can monitor your blood pressure and other indicators of stress and prescribe to you the appropriate medication or natural health remedies to help you cope with the anxiety. It’s best to visit a doctor who knows your medical history quite well. Be careful though when it comes to medication. Don’t try a drug because your best friend takes it. What’s good for your friend may not be good for you. This reminds me of one of my biggest exam stress gaffes. Before my Advanced Level Accounting exam, I was so stressed that my mother insisted that I take half a Valium pill. After much coaxing, I took the damn pill right before the exam and proceeded to pass out in the middle of the exam on my paper. Needless to say I failed my exam and had the longest sleep ever when I got home. Embarrassing, dangerous and unnecessary. (Hope my mum doesn’t read this). And whatever you do, stay way from coffee and energy drinks. Luckily, I hate both and I am intolerant to caffeine so this was easy for me to do when I was a student. However, I can say that 80% of my friends guzzled down the stuff like there’s no tomorrow and the after effects were ugly.

During exams I always seem to take up sports. I think it’s been my natural response to the anxiety and it should be yours too. Forget about not having enough time. Just wake up early and start your day with a walk, jog or run and your brain will thank you for it later. Drink plenty of water (just buy a six-pack of water and keep it near your desk at all times), eat lots of brain food (bananas, dark chocolate, spinach, oranges…) and get some fresh air every so often. 

3) Create a support system

First things first. I’m so interested in knowing as many people as possible that I often forget that the most important people on campus are my classmates. Make sure that when you start a new course, you immediately form a group of friends who will be your lifeline. We’re not superheroes and can’t catch up with all the material for studying. A group of classmates who you can share notes with, discuss  assignments and lectures with, study with is INVALUABLE. I hated second year at uni because I felt I didn’t really have a good support system of classmates. I was focused on my activities outside of uni and it made it harder for me to focus on what really mattered. Something similar happened during Sixth Form. Luckily, I b*tch-slapped my ego in time for my final year and thanks to the most amazing classmates I have had the pleasure of befriending, I made it through my exams quite stress free (my dissertation was another story).

Secondly, GO ONLINE. My final year class had a Facebook group between ourselves and a few others with our lecturers. I can’t tell you how many times these groups saved my life. You get the odd student here or there who doesn’t want to share what they know. But I promise you, that 99% of the time your classmates WILL share valuable information with you because they know that a) you might return the favour and b) you’re all in the same boat after all.

Lastly, try and get your family and friends on your side. Sit them down before the exam period and express your anxieties and fears. Perhaps, discuss ways to compromise how you can help them keep calm and how they can help you avoid stress. Nothing is worse then a panicking family member. Before my Advanced Level Economics exam, my mum was more freaked out than me that she fell down the stairs right before I left (Sorry Mum. Not the best thing to post on Mother’s Day). Unfortunately, even the people who care about you the most won’t always get it and will try and blame your mood swings and grumpiness on other unrelated issues. If that’s the case, try and remain as calm as possible with them. Counting to ten actually really works in these scenarios. Trust me. Just breathe in, count to ten, shake it out, smile and laugh at the misunderstanding individual and move on. Why add more stress arguing with your family or friends? Look at the big picture.

4) Prevent Self-Sabotage

I used to feel I’m the Queen of Self-Sabotage when it comes to exams. There were times when I would feel so frustrated that I would procrastinate for hours. Everything would be a distraction to me. Honestly, sometimes I felt like the best thing to do was to disable my Facebook account (one of my friends used to do this successfully until she discovered Twitter), sell my TV, sound-proof my walls and throw away my mobile phone. And I would get even more frustrated when my friends would manage to go out and party and still study and get good grades during exams. I just felt life was really unfair and that I was destined to fail.

One morning I just told myself screw ‘em, screw em’ all! My exam study regime is different and that’s OK. We don’t all have the same study routines and that’s cool. Don’t feel peer pressured into believing that you HAVE to do an all-nighter study session to pass an exam, or you can’t stay in during the weekends or that Red Bull is your saviour. My exam regime was to wake up before sunrise, go out and walk as the sun rises, shower and have breakfast, study till noon, LUNCH, study until 6pm, DINNER, relax and be in bed by 9pm. I knew that most people I knew slept during the day and studied during witching hours but that wasn’t for me. If that’s how you roll then be my guest. You’re the only person who can determine what works best for you. Experiment with different study regimes and find the best solution to help you deal with stress. But I must say that a good deal of preventing self-sabotage is getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night. Just sayin’.

And this one is going to hit you like a ton of bricks but in my experience, my greatest source of exam stress came from the fact that I always left studying and assignments to the last minute. I only remedied this situation during the final year of my degree and it improved my grades and decreased my fear of exams dramatically. As they say, prevention is better than cure. In the end, I realised that if I wanted to get something done there was no point thinking about it because that was the leading cause of my stress. All I had to do was do it. No ifs or buts. If you keep thinking about your exam or all the notes you have to read for an exam you have tomorrow, then you’re just going to fall into a spiral of despair. There’s no easy way around it. You have to learn to organise your notes, study them gradually and be prepared for the worst. It sucks if you’re reading this towards the end of your academic year and you’ve just realised you didn’t practise any prevention tactics. Honestly, don’t sweat about it. It’s bloody hard work being a nerd even though it always pays off. Just work hard from now. You still have some weeks/days left. Give it your all and you will see results. Don’t disillusion yourself into thinking you’re going to perform a miracle though. Not all exams go the way we want them to even if we are the most prepared student on the planet. I know, it sucks. The worst thing you can do is pre-condition yourself into thinking you’re going to fail because then, well, you WILL fail.

5) Establish Rituals/Motivations

Motivations come in the form of aims or goals. Some are more education or career oriented: I want to pass this exam to get into that university. I want to pass this exam to help launch my career. Others are personal: I want to pass this exam because the subject professor is my favourite lecturer (this really works for me!). I want to pass this exam because everyone thinks I am going to fail it (prove them wrong!). Whatever your motivation, be careful that it is something you also really want to achieve and that it is not something that was forced onto you. The worst thing is feeling pressure to pass an exam for all the wrong reasons. At the end of the day, it’s just an exam and whoever is pressuring you should lay off. That said, motivations are powerful tools for success and overcoming fear of failure.

As for rituals, ay caramba. I have a pretty weird one. The most helpful advice I ever got to help combat my exam stress was from a dear friend of mine. He once told me a few years ago that whenever I felt like throwing up at the thought of an exam, all I had to do was (graphic content ahead) pretend I was a pimp and that the exam paper was my b*tch; and that if that b*tch misbehaved I had to smack the sh*t out of that b*tch. I feel terrible writing this and it’s quite a degrading example but it has really worked for me. When I go to an exam I get into “beat the b*tch” mode as I call it. I basically trick my brain into thinking I’m being trained my the drill sergeant from hell. Phrases like “Are you going to let a little  piece of piss-coloured exam paper step all over you, you f*cking useless excuse of a human being?” start rapidly entering my mind. I get so worked up that the adrenaline from this little pre-exam role-play alone gives me enough energy, stamina and mental clarity to finish the paper. I guess, the whole process makes me feel like there’s no way I’m going to let myself be humiliated by a piece of paper. So I go in like I’m going for a fight. Weird ritual as I warned you all but it has really helped me. I suggest trying to find a frame of mind that helps you remain calm too. And if you find a less violent one, please do share. 

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I hope this post will be helpful to at least some people. Everyone has different ways to handle their feelings of fear. I like to just not think about it and trust my impulses. Others prefer to practise prevention (something I am working on). What you fear the most (whether it be exams or not) is probably something that is NOT going to kill you. For example, this afternoon I watched a ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ episode where Kim is absolutely petrified of dancing that she can’t even dance to her favourite song alone in her room. I don’t think I would get along with Kim at  a slumber party because I practically dance and sing like I’m in a musical all the friggin’ time. However, everyone has fears – some irrational, some rational. If you can’t overcome these fears, just make sure you are aware of them and concentrate on which areas of your life they are holding you back in. Wouldn’t it just be better if we got over the things that set us back from achieving our dreams? Of course. All we got to do is get the courage to punch fear in the face. It may lead to a few smashed knuckles but it’s worth it in the end.

Happy Knuckle Busting & Good Luck to all those who have exams!

Pimp of the Paper,

Tamara.

Live and Let Live

Curiosity is both a negative and a positive quality to possess. It reminds me of two of the Seven Deadly Sins. To be envious, for example, is dreadfully rotten but can also motivate one to be a better person or work harder to achieve what one desires. Pride can also protect one from de-motivational or embarrassing experiences to come out with a stronger sense of self-acceptance. Curiosity is the same in the sense that it depends in what circumstance we use it and what we derive from it.

I am a curious soul especially when it comes to people and that may probably sound awful right now, but let me explain. Rather than pry into people’s personal lives, I love exploring the psychology of a person through intuition. I enjoy guessing what kind of person you are without actually asking too much about your life. And I love meeting people who keep me guessing their personality. The art of intuition is a branch of psychology I find very interesting and before I knew what it was I was already using it. I would describe intuition as a quality – one that may be inherent or acquired. Although some people have a natural sense of intuition, it is definitely a skill that can be self-taught. In fact, intuition is often part of the training given to detectives and interrogators when it comes to revealing clues to a crime.

Intuition to me is a positive quality but is not one that I simply rely on to form impressions on a person’s character. It is just the starting point that helps ME understand what makes YOU tick. Generally, it would take communication with you, observing your behaviour with different groups of people and sharing positive/negative experiences with you to understand your character. What is important to me is not to find out your personal affairs but to empathise with you. My mind is consistently wondering what it would be like in other people’s shoes. I find it so frustrating that I can only see the world through my own eyes and life. When I die who knows what will become of me? Could re-incarnation really be true? Even if I am re-born as somebody else, I will still walk the Earth in my own pair of shoes. This limiting aspect of humanity makes it hard for us to empathise with each other and can lead to negative curiosity.

Negative curiosity is basically the art of nosiness and the main reason why I wrote this post. If I had to write a top ten list of phrases that define the philosophy I have formed about life until now then Live and Let Live would be one of them. I believe it is complicated enough trying to live our own lives so why go about trying to tell others how to live theirs. Why pry and point, judge and criticise, condemn and control people? Why not use the same energy to focus on your own life rather than that of others? We are all naturally inquisitive but there is a fine line between being curious and being nosy. Once you are in the nosy territory it is easy to adopt other negative traits like spreading rumours or gossip.

Privacy is something I hold dear to me which sounds strange for someone who often likes to blog about her personal life. However, when I blog I choose what to share and I hold myself responsible for any consequences that follow. When people persistently keep asking me questions about my private life and I know that they don’t mean well it really annoys me. I try to make it clear to them that I am not happy with their questions but sometimes it is hard to get through to them. In some cases, I understand that they just want to satisfy their inquisitiveness and I play along. However, when a nosy person starts asking questions to the point that they judge you and make you conform to their views, that is when it is no longer fun and games. When someone I care about asks too many questions and criticises my actions, it’s supposed to hurt for a reason. It hurts because I love them and they love me and that means they probably mean well. This is one of those situations when Live and Let Live doesn’t work. Sometimes we need someone to pry into our lives, as long as it is someone who does so in our best intentions – whether they know us well or not.

I don’t really want to be preachy on the way we interact with others. After all, as I explained earlier, I am unable to step into everyone’s shoes. However, I believe that if we exert a level of empathy in each interaction, we can create better relationships with people. Intuition can help one get in tune with people’s feelings and emotions before saying potentially insensitive things to them. Because our human nature limits us from fully understanding the way others think, it is crucial to practice tolerance. When we practice tolerance we open our minds to new experiences. The good thing about that, is that we need not feel pressured to partake in such experiences (especially if they don’t align with our values), but at least we can peacefully co-exist with people who do. And finally, with an open mind comes not only an open will but an open heart. The key word: compassion.

The next time you’re not sure whether your curiosity is getting the better of you exercise a little compassion and ask yourself the following:-

1. Do I know the person well enough to be asking such questions?
2. Do I have the right to control this person’s actions?
3. Do I have the right to condemn this person’s actions?
4. Can I ask the person to explain it to me before criticising it?
5. Am I just asking so as to open my mind?
6. Am I asking such questions due to envy?
7. Am I asking such questions due to boredom or to satisfy my crave for gossip? (probably the most pointless and annoying reason)
8. Do I intend to use the information I found out for good or for bad?
9. Am I asking such questions because there’s something in it for me?
10. Would I like it if someone asked me the same questions?

REMEMBER: Only you know how to live your life in the best way possible. Let others live theirs. Live and Let Live.

30 BC – DAY 30

OHM - Symbol of Consciousness or Underlying Intelligence

Today, I am blessed because…

…most of the time I have the mental clarity to decide what is right and what is wrong for me.

This one’s a long one. It’s also my last one. And it’s an important one!

My mum said a nice thing to me yesterday: “I admire you so much. At your age I did not have the mental clarity to admit some things about myself out loud.” We were talking about a particular subject but even so, it was a comment that I really appreciated. The way I process choices and decisions is not pitch perfect. I make many errors of judgment. I only started to develop an active approach towards mental clarity in the last two years. Now I’m 22 and I can’t even believe it! When I turned 21 I felt so old. That was my limit for birthdays!

Twenty-one seemed to be a defining moment for me. I changed a lot mentally. I think I matured these last two years. Mistakes were still made and are still being made. However, I am happy to say that I feel like most of the time I have the mental clarity to decided what is right and what is wrong for me.

How are you BLESSED today?

Tamara

P.S. Thank you for joining me on this BLESSINGS jounery. Exactly 30 days of blessings for those who have only just tuned in now. It was a truly great project for me and I feel saner after doing it. Be sure to check out my other 29 days. Soon enough, we’ll be back to regular programming .Until then, stay blessed!

30 BC – DAY 29

 

Today, I am blessed because…

…I have a roof over my head!

I always lived in small apartments or maisonettes, and for a huge part of my life, this was a form of embarrassment for me. Now that I’ve grown up I just take it in my stride and remind myself that I have so many things to be thankful for that I shouldn’t worry about where I live.

I just have to keep in mind that my parents always did their best to provide for my brothers and I. One way they did this was providing us with shelter and a loving home. Our home may be a little small and cosy, but I would rather have ‘cosy’ than sleeping on the streets! Therefore, I shall sleep easy tonight with the consolation that tomorrow I have my last exam, and that if the current lunar eclipse unleashes a vicious zombie apocalypse, then I will be safe and sound in my room (I hope!).

How are you BLESSED today?

Tamara xoxo

BRAAAIIINSSS!!

30 BC – DAY 28

Today, I am blessed because…

…I persisted!

I went for my costume fitting today as I will be working as an extra in a Norwegian feature film called Kon-Tiki. It took us more than one hour to get to Rinella due to traffic, an hour and a half at the fitting and an hour and a half to get home by bus. Needless to say I was feeling tired and sweaty when I got back and I still have a major headache. But somehow, I found some inner strength and persisted with my studies and only just stopped now as my headache has reached its peak. Sometimes I don’t know how I get the energy to work. When I am feeling fresh, wide and awake, that usually makes me procrastinate more. Today, I was exhausted and feeling sick-ish but something kept me going. My body is really messed up.

Now it is time to rest but I shall carry on tomorrow. I’ve just got two more days until the end of exams and the end of this challenge.

How are you BLESSED today?

Tamara

30 BC – DAY 27

Today, I am blessed because…

…I am not alone!

It’s my birthday but I almost forgot about it this morning. My mind was on my exam and I didn’t have any birthday plans. After logging onto Facebook and switching on my mobile phone I realised that today is a special day indeed. Luckily, I am not alone in this world and there are people who will greet me (at least on my birthday). I thank all those who acknowledged the day I was born on. I am truly touched. The response was overwhelming! Bless you all and thanks for reminding me that I will never be alone.

How are you BLESSED today?

Tamara

30 BC – DAY 26

Today, I am blessed because…

…I got the opportunity to go to university!

In a few days time I shall finish reading for my degree. It seems like a dream. What a long and winding journey that was, and yet at the same time, how fast it flew past my very eyes! My second semester was a nightmare and I am hoping that I won’t have to do any resits or repeat my last year or something. That said, I am kind of sad that it’s all over. The prospect of finally having a full time job is exciting but I’m really going to miss uni. The whole experience has forced me to grow up, accept responsibility and aim for myself without other people trying to set my goals. It has also instilled in me a hunger for knowledge and the truth.

Some people talk about uni opening up the graduate to a world of better paid jobs. I don’t think uni is all about getting a high paid job. In most cases, graduates take ages to find a good job anyway. Some have to go abroad or continue studying to secure relevant employment in their desired career. For me, it is more about being in an environment that nourishes well informed, opinionated, conscientious citizens. The beauty of it is that nobody will force you to seek knowledge. However, the resources are all around you: software, books, equipment, professionals in the field. It is their at your fingertips and you have the power to use it.

I shall never forget the wonderful people I met at my time at the University of Malta. I have formed some wonderful friendships with my classmates, lecturers, various staff members and especially with people who I have encountered while working within student organisations. I am truly grateful for sharing this experience with them.

So, how are you BLESSED today?

Tamara