How a Tense Mind Affects Performance and What I Learned

Hello, how are you all? I hope you’re well. So, today I will discuss a very important point, which is a tense mind—meaning when you do any work while being tense, even the right work turns out wrong. I’m discussing this because it also happens to me, especially in my studies, like during exams or quizzes. This has been happening to me from the start.

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But how does it happen? It’s like this: whenever I have a quiz, even if I’ve prepared, I remain tense, thinking, “What if it’s not right?” but I still manage to do it right. However, sometimes the tension is so much that while trying to do it correctly, I end up making mistakes. For example, in my last quiz, I got confused while trying to do it right, and thinking, “Am I even doing this correctly?” I made a mistake in the second last calculation, and because of that, my last answer wasn’t coming out right. And I was so tense I couldn’t even notice that the mistake was in the previous step.

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However, I am usually not as tense in quizzes as I am in midterms. To this day, there hasn’t been a midterm where I haven’t made some kind of blunder. It’s one thing to not know the material at all, but when you know it and still make mistakes because of tension—that’s truly regretful. Sometimes, I end up making mistakes on the things I just explained to my friends right before the exam room. I fix this for my finals by first relaxing myself, then reading the paper, and then attempting it, and it goes fine.

The point is, that whenever you burden yourself with something, the task inevitably goes wrong. That’s why now I try not to burden myself with anything and to do everything calmly and with ease. It’s not necessary to feel the tension just because you have exams—thinking, “What will happen if I fail?” Instead of thinking like this, it’s better to prepare well, stay relaxed, and then do the task; it will go well.

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Like, this semester, I haven’t prepared for any quizzes at home. Like, it’s just a 3-4 mark quiz, so there’s no need to stress over it or sit at home and prepare. Instead, I just look at the quiz in class, and it turns out fine because I don’t do it tensely; I do it calmly.

So, my advice to everyone is not to burden yourself with little things, nor to turn small issues into big ones. Instead, just try to find a solution to the issue at hand.