Calming nerves before exams

[chomperz22]

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Hi everyone,
Congrats to all of you who are done with the DAT. I'm not taking the DAT for another year, however I know that I get very nervous before exams and it ends up hurting me while I'm taking the exam since I can't think straight.

How do you calm your nerves before finals / other large exams ??

 

[Thetoothhurts91]

I go pee.
No joke. Even if I don't need to go, I force myself to. Last thing you want is to take an unscheduled break or bop your legs on the table wishing to go to the bathroom.
Also, by the time you are finished studying you should feel fairly confident. I'm one of those folks that give themselves a pep talk in front of a mirror.
Just remember that you have come so far, you put in a good amount of studying, and whatever the outcome is you will do anything to be a dentist. There's no shame whatsoever in redoing a test.

 

[Jadesocket]

Assuming you have studied as much as you can, go for a long bike ride the day before.

 

[BobbyBeavis]

I guess you could call me superstitious, so I wore my Navy hoodie and my sweat pants. I wore it for one test and did really well, and ever since then I have wore the same thing on a big test.

I am also HUGE on music. It soothes your soul! The night before one of my tests, I turned on the radio and a song I loved came on. Ever since then, I listen to the song before a test. What do you think I did today? Set it as my ring tone and listened to it on most of the drive there!!!

 

[RahYoo]

I get in the mindset where I focus on not getting caught up in the moment when things go wrong, to "roll with the punches" so to speak. Can't fall asleep the night before? Don't know how to do 5 questions in a row on the test? Someone behind you cough and sneezing up a storm? Complaining/letting these things piss you off/panicking is counterproductive because a lot of these things are outside your control. I treat them as additional challenges to overcome, and try to adapt to them as much as possible. Obviously everyone wants the DAT test taking experience to be smooth sailing and perfect (the stuff in the DAT is hard enough as is!), but sometimes you just have to roll with it.

 

[FOX_ONE]

make sure you have crapped before your exam first of all.
worst thing is to have to poopsock in the middle of an exam

meditation is key.

meditation is key for optimizing anything that you use your mind for... which is anything in life.

you'll start to realize the value of the present moment and everything will fall into place after that.

also self-hypnosis is godly.