Stress Relief
1: Get More Exercise
2: Improve Sleeping Habits
3: Eat Well
4: Keep Your Life in Balance
5: Learn and Practice Relaxation Techniques
6: Remember to Breathe
7: Meditate
Exercise is the single most important thing you can do to improve your overall endurance, to lower your stress and worry levels, and to increase mental toughness. It strengthens physical stamina. It relaxes and tires the body, allowing for deep restorative sleep. It restores energy to the body, improves concentration, and enhances your ability to fight off disease and heal from injury. It reduces anxiety, lifts depression, and provides a sense of well-being and confidence. If you’re just starting an exercise program, do so gradually. You might consider a few sessions with a personal trainer to help you set up a balanced exercise program, or you can simply start by walking quickly 30 minutes a day, four days a week.
2. Improve Sleeping Habits
Deep restorative sleep is essential to physical endurance. Deep sleep allows you to think clearly and concentrate. It repairs the body and helps to fight off disease. Unfortunately, most law students and bar candidates I know are sleep-deprived. Sleep-deprived students tend to get more colds, have higher anxiety levels, and deal less skillfully with stress and worry than those who get enough sleep.
Many students in my own bar review report poor sleep or inability to sleep during the bar prep period. This is generally caused by anxiety about the upcoming test. Often as the bar review class continues, and they see progress in their skills and work, the anxiety decreases and sleep returns. In the meantime, here are some suggestions for better sleep.
A. Eliminate all caffeine later than 3 P.M.
Caffeine taken late in the day can affect sleep. Caffeine includes coffee, colas, teas, some pain relievers, and chocolate. Some people tolerate lots of it and sleep fine. Others don’t. If you are having trouble sleeping, try this.
B. Stop the mind chatter
Often students complain to me about mind chatter: even when they are tired, their minds just won’t stop. There are several ways to put an end to mind chatter.
C. Stop studying one to two hours before bed.
Use that time to do something relaxing, such as watching television, listening to soothing music, taking a bath, or reading a good book or magazine.
D. Use a progressive relaxation tape. Lie in bed and listen to the tape, concentrating on relaxing each muscle one at a time.
E. Get up and write it down. If you can’t sleep because your mind won’t stop or your mind wakes you from sleep, get up and write down everything your mind is saying. Don’t edit. Just write. Don’t stop until it is all out of your system.
F. Use a natural sleeping aid such as Melatonin or Valerian Root
Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone that induces sleep. By taking a bit more of it at bedtime, you encourage your mind to be quiet and go to sleep. It doesn’t affect you the next day, but if you take it too often it will stop having the desired effect.
G. Increase your physical activity
Many students can’t sleep because their bodies have been sitting all day. Physical exercise, if accomplished early enough in the day (say before 8 P.M.), tires and relaxes the body, getting it ready for sleep.
3. Eat Well
Good nutrition keeps your body strong, your energy high, and your intellect sharp. You are also more resistant to mood swings and emotional upset. Eating well includes the following: a varied diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains; a moderate amount of fat, sugar, salt, alcohol, and caffeine; and regular meal times, three or more a day.
4. Keep Your Life in Balance
Treat studying for the bar like a full-time job. Then spend the rest of the time taking care of the rest of you. In addition to the items above, you also need play time; that is when you do something FUN. Fun activities totally absorb your thoughts and rejuvenate you. The break from study gives your subconscious mind time to process what you’ve been studying, and provides perspective on the whole bar exam preparation process. Without play, your life is out of balance. This often results in feeling deprived, lethargic, bored, depressed, and uninterested in studying.
5. Learn and Practice Relaxation Techniques
When you are under pressure, you store tension in your muscles. You can diminish the amount of stress you feel by purposely tensing your muscles for 10 seconds and then releasing them. The more you practice doing this, the easier it will be to relax in pressure situations. Get a progressive relaxation tape and listen to it before you go to sleep at night.
6. Remember to Breathe
Often when you’re stressed, your breathing becomes shallow; that is, you breathe from the top of your chest instead of your abdomen. Shallow breathing is uncomfortable because you don’t feel as if you’re getting enough air. This leads to breathing faster, which can cause hyperventilation and panic. When you hyperventilate, you don’t get enough oxygen, and as a consequence you become dizzy and disoriented. If this continues for long, you lose consciousness.
So here’s what you do. When you notice you’re feeling stressed, check your breathing. Concentrate on relaxing the abdominal muscles. Purposely slow your movement and thoughts down. Consciously take slow, deep breaths from your abdomen. This will reduce your stress and keep you from passing out. This is a wonderful exercise because it provides a great deal of relief in a short period of time.
7. Meditate
Meditation is an excellent way to reduce stress and worry, increase concentration, and decrease distractibility. Meditation helps you learn to concentrate completely on the task in front of you, and to free yourself of distracting thoughts and feelings.
It takes practice, but the more you do it the easier it will become, and the less you will be bothered by annoying anxious thoughts that seem to appear in exam situations.
The easiest type of meditation I know is Zen meditation. Sit on the floor and face a blank wall. If you need back support, you can sit up against the back of a couch or the side of your bed, or you can sit in a straight-backed chair with your feet firmly on the ground. Meditation is not about being physically uncomfortable, so adjust your position until you feel good. Next, stare at the wall and concentrate on your breath. I like to focus on the in-and-out motion of my abdomen as I breathe. Others focus on the air as it leaves the nose. (If you would prefer to do this with your eyes closed, that’s okay too.)
For the next 20 minutes, watch your breath. Notice when your mind runs off and starts thinking about yesterday’s ballgame, the fight you had with your coworker, or the need to find someone to stay with your cat when you go to Hawaii after the bar exam. Once you’ve noticed your mind has drifted away, gently bring it back to your breath. Repeat as necessary, without criticizing yourself about how many times you had to bring your focus back to your breath.
It is not important how long you stay focused on your breath. It is important that you try to stay focused and that you bring your focus back whenever you stray. It is the practice that counts even when you think it went badly.
Try to do this once a day, either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Or find some other time, such as your lunch break. If you can’t meditate for 20 minutes, start with 10 and work toward 20. Over time, you will find that meditating will make it easier to focus on studying and ignore the distracting thoughts.
*Answers courtesy of Rosemary LaPuma, If I Don’t Pass The Bar, I’ll Die, (c) 2008, Aspen Publishers, Inc. pages 31-35.
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