6 Breathing Exercises For Test Taking

6 Breathing Exercises For Test Taking pexels.com 4. Muscle relaxation Muscle tension is something that often happens when you’re very tense. When trying to relieve that tension, focus on your muscles and relaxing them. An easy way to do this is by coordinating your muscle tension with your breathing. Take a long inhale and tense up all your muscles, then hold your breath and muscle tension before relaxing everything as you exhale. Doing this will help you realize what was already tense and also help you learn to combat such tension with your breathing and awareness. 5. Breath counting Perhaps another of the simplest exercises is to count your breath. Each exhale counts as one breath. However, the most important part of this is to make sure that when you count, you don’t go over five. This is to keep your brain occupied. If you lose count or go past five, you know that your mind has drifted from your breathing. You want to make sure that your mind doesn’t return to your anxiety but remains constant and on your breathing. 6. Belly breathing Sometimes when you’re anxious, you aren’t aware that your breathing has become shallow and unhelpful. A trick to developing fuller and better breaths is to place a hand on your stomach while you breathe. When you breathe this way, let your stomach push out as you inhale air. Try and take in as much air as comfortably possible. Don’t forget to exhale all of that air and feel your stomach deflate as well. This technique helps exercise your deep breathing skills and will keep your mind calm and focused. It may take some trial and error to determine which of these exercises works best for you. It may be wise to try different ones out at home the night before and then utilize the one you feel is most effective. When test taking, the most essential thing to do is clear the worries that will block your brain from remembering what it already knows. If you can keep your mind as a blank slate, only focused on the question in front of you, the answers will rise more easily to the surface. These are just some breathing techniques, but many other ones can be found all over the internet. Regardless of tests, there are tons of other situations  where controlling your breathing can be beneficial too. If you find this very helpful in curbing your stress and anxiety, it may be worth it to look into other techniques like meditation and yoga.