Does Meditation Before An Exam Help?

Meditation becomes a very popular practice to control stress, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and other mental illness. However, meditation provides many other benefits that enhance our capabilities and well-being. 

This article is especially for students who are striving to help themselves through meditation. I will try to answer your questions regarding how meditation can help during those exam days and your academic career. 

Does meditation help before a test? 

Meditation helps students before an exam because after meditating, they may feel more relaxed, calm, focused, and joyful. These qualities help students overcome negativity and enhance their brain functioning, memory power, and creativity before an exam.

Practicing guided meditation during the exam days helps to cope with exam fear and study stress in students.

However, regular meditation could bring so many benefits to students’ lives and boost their academic performance.

Meditation benefits before test and studying

Meditation can help us in various ways, but I have listed some proven meditation benefits, spacially for students, which could help them during exams and study. Some benefits may grow gradually with the consistent practice of meditation. 

1) Increases focus and Lengthen attention span.

Focus is very precious in students’ lives, and especially during the exam, without adequate concentration, your productivity reduces, and you need more time to grasp even simple concepts. 

Although meditation is all about practicing concentration, you focus your attention on the object of meditation. It can be a mantra, guided instructions, body sensation, body point, or your breath. 

The focus is a base of all meditation techniques. So, you will develop the ability to concentrate automatically through practicing meditation.

Here are some scientific studies which prove that meditation can increase your concentration power. 

One study found that brief mindfulness meditation session improves attention in Novices where meditators listened to 10 minutes guided mindfulness, and they experienced improved attention while completing allotted tasks. 

The dynamic process of attention control study suggests that people who practice meditation regularly have better attention focus ability in visual tasks compared to those who don’t meditate.

Similarly, another study showed that 13 minutes daily guided meditation sessions for 8-weeks enhanced the attention and memory of practitioners.  

Thus, practicing meditation before an exam may increase your concentration power which will help you write tests with fewer distractions and maximum cognition. And regular practice could bring more focus to study. 

2) Boost creativity

Creativity or imagination is a precious thing in the world, and this faculty can be developed through practice, and meditation can help you do so. 

Creative students are not only ahead in academics but also make a unique individuality in other fields of their lives. 

It’s our pleasure that with the help of meditation, an ordinary student or person can enhance the faculty of creativity and achieve greatness in life. 

An article published in Harvard business review says that meditation is useful not only for stress reduction, but it could boost creativity too. 

Even daily 10-12 minutes of short meditation sessions may bring a big change in creative thinking. 

Another research found the Focused attention and open monitoring meditation exert a specific effect on creativity. It allows diverse thinking ability that generate many new ideas.

However, other different meditation techniques may dive into this same specific state of cognition. 

I think every student wants to be creative to get good grades in exams. These proofs are enough to convince you that you should practice meditation regularly to boost your creativity.

3) Reduces stress and depression

Many students become stressed out and depressed before their exams and can’t give their best in exams. Then they find solutions to overcome this mental illness and maybe end up getting temporary results. 

These mental problems are spreading at a high pace; to control them, we should promote meditation among the young generation as an antidote. 

There are so many research studies that support meditation reduces stress-related problems. Here, I have listed some of them. 

This study found that Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction practice may reduce the anxiety symptoms who were suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and improve stress reactivity and coping.

Similarly, reviewing another study on mindfulness, where 47 patients with chronic pain experienced significant improvement in pain, anxiety, and depression through mindfulness meditation therapy. 

See how meditation supports surmount stress-related disorders and can be useful for students during their hard days.

4) Enhances emotional health 

Meditation helps overcome negative emotions and generates kindness, love, compassion, and other positive emotions. 

Nowadays, scientists say that EQ (Emotional intelligence) has the same importance as IQ; both play the same role in overall success in life. 

[Emotional health means mentally you must be dominated by more positive thoughts emotions than stress, anxiety, depression, or any other negative emotions]

But most people don’t even know that they should be emotionally healthy too. They chase more knowledge (IQ) and physical health and ignore their emotional health. 

However, we are lucky that we have meditation techniques that can enhance our emotional health and help to deprive ourselves of negative thoughts and feelings. 

An analysis of 50 fresh college students with no meditation experience improved positive emotions, interpersonal interaction, and understanding of others after 4-weeks of loving-kindness meditation practice. 

They just had meditated 3 times a week and got significant improvement in emotional health. 

Meditation should be a part of our daily route to leverage the most out of it. Students who are suffering from exam fear or depression must take this seriously for their well-being. It would not only help them before the exam but throughout life. 

In this context, one study of mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation reviewed that these benefits start accumulating with day-by-day practice. After few months with meditation, one will see its benefits. 

Meditation before the exam may strengthen you emotionally to organize and handle yourself in the worst situations too. Practicing meditation before an exam, you may study your course with an increased sense of peace, joyfulness, and enthusiasm.

5) Increases self-awareness

When the mind is fully aware in the present moment without any judgments or interpretation, that’s self-awareness or mindfulness. 

Mindfulness meditation becomes very popular nowadays, and researchers have shown interest due to its life-changing benefits.

Every meditation techniques help to develop mindfulness, and mindfulness practice leads to a better self-awarded individual.

For students, increased self-awareness leads to less negative thinking and feelings and allows them to redirect this negativity in a constructive way.

It also allows you to differentiate between what is wrong and what is right, what is necessary, and what is unnecessary. 

With the increased self-awareness, students can easily declutter themselves from useless activities and organize and manage their study schedules efficiently during exam days.

It’s the best way to save your time and increase productivity by removing unnecessary things and just focusing on fruitful activities. 

6) Improves sleep

Sleep means giving rest to your body and mind. When you have adequate rest, you feel energetic and refreshed; likewise, sleep plays an important role in studying and performing the exam. 

Relaxed meditation calms down your mind and improves the quality of sleep. With proper rest, your productivity automatically improves, and with that, you could bring handsome grades too. 

Mindfulness meditation not only improves sleep but also uses as a viable treatment for chronic insomnia. 

One study supports this statement and shows, mindfulness-based treatment improves the symptoms in insomnia patients. And It was concluded that mindfulness-based therapy could provide an alternative to traditional treatments.

I think you are now convinced that meditation could help you before your exam and in your academic career too. Including meditation in your routine is the best way to develop the habit, so you are benefited more in the longer run. 

You may have a question that Which meditation technique should I practice before an exam or for studying. 

To answer this question, I will share 3 easy techniques to practice, especially for beginners. I also emphasize you follow anyone of them regulations to get the most out of it.

How to meditate before an exam and for studying 

Guided meditation 

It’s the practice of paying attention and following the meditation instructions from a coach or in the form of recorded audio or video. All meditation techniques could be practiced through a series of guided instructions.

Several guided meditation practices reduce stress, anxiety, fear, and depression and develop focus, self-awareness, creativity, and positive thinking. 

To practice guided meditation, you can use meditation apps or YouTube videos and choose one guided meditation according to your demand. 

Follow these steps to practice guided meditation

  • Find a quiet place or less distracting environment
  • Sit in a crossed leg posture or on the chair with a spine comfortably erect and face facing forward
  • Slowly take 5-6 deep breaths to calm down your mind and focus your attention on breathing
  • Play guided meditation and follow its instructions

It may be possible when you are listening to instructions; your mind will drift away and think nonsense. So when you become aware of it, gently bring it on the track without being frustrated or irritated. 

Related Article: 10 Guided Meditations For Kids

Mindfulness meditation 

Mindfulness is the practice of controlling the mind to stay in the present moment with a non-judgmental attitude. 

When you pay attention to the present moment, you are mindful, so every meditation technique is an exercise of practicing NOW.

Although you can practice mindfulness anytime and anywhere, it can be done while walking, eating, talking, speaking, and exercising. 

And when you are not engaged in any of these activities, you can practice mindfulness by paying attention to your breath or heartbeat. Watching the breath is a famous mindfulness meditation practice. 

Steps to practice mindfulness meditation

  • Find a quiet place or less distracting environment
  • Sit in a crossed leg posture or on the chair with a spine comfortably erect and face facing forward
  • Set a timer of 10-15 minutes or more
  • Slowly take 5-6 deep breaths and count 1-3 while inhaling and exhaling
  • Now vigilantly follow your natural breath, sense the touch of air at the nostril
  • Or you can also follow the belly movement with breath in and out

It seems easy to do so, but you will face some difficulties concentrating your mind on the breath at the beginning. 

But with few days of practice, you will succeed in doing so and notice the feeling of calmness and relaxation. 

This is scientifically proven that control breathing calms down the mind and stops chattering. So doing this mindfulness practice before an exam will help to declutter your mind from unnecessary thoughts and help you focus on preparation. 

Object focused meditation 

As the name suggests, this meditation allows you to focus on a physical or virtual object. 

In this meditation, you have to focus your attention on the object like a candle flame, image, chakras, or virtual picture in mind. Here, candle flam meditation is a very famous practice, and it’s easy to do. 

When you concentrate on one of these objects, your monkey mind stops shifting gears and directs its energy towards one dimension only. 

Practicing object-focused meditation could be helpful for students to grasp their study materials and remember for a long time compared to non-practitioners. 

Steps to practice object-focused meditation.

  • Find a quiet place or less distracting environment
  • Sit in a crossed leg posture or on the chair with a spine comfortably erect and face facing forward.
  • Set a timer of 10-15 minutes or more
  • Slowly take 5-6 deep breaths to relax your mind
  • Focus your attention on one object (ex. Candle flam) with a soft gaze

Like every meditation, your mind tends to wander away from the object of meditation, but you should bring it back each time with ease. 

However, other meditation techniques will give these same benefits. You can try them as well.

How long should a student meditate before an exam?

10-15 minutes of meditation before an exam can be beneficial for students. However, they can practice more if they have enough time. I think it would be more useful if they develop a routine to practice meditation. 

Related Article: How long should you meditate?

This daily habit will definitely help them in the long run. I have already mentioned the benefits of regular meditation. 

I hope you have got your answer packed with many other useful pieces of information, and maybe you are now motivated to practice meditation on a regular basis.

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