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“If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them,

And half as much money!”

As the saying goes by, we need to spend more time with our children by playing, reading together, doing an activity, learning new stuff than spending money on them by giving them all the luxuries of life. A family that stay-cates together, bonds well together.

Planning a trip during the summer or winter vacation could be beneficial to everyone in the family in so many ways…

Emotional strong bonding:

When a family or friends travel together for a holiday, they spend quality time together and enjoy each other’s company. It’s a wonderful opportunity to spend time from the daily chores, forget about responsibilities for a while, be stress-free and enjoy to the fullest. This helps to create a strong bond between family and friends.

Good academic performance:

Families who share great bonding, indirectly are taking care of their children’s academic performance. Children are open to their parents, can be frank about their academics, worry less or are less scared of them.

Less behavioral issues:

When there is a good rapport between parents and children, naturally children behave good, are less cranky, have required confidence, self-respect and esteem.

Good for overall health:

When the home temperament is good, it shows on the physical and mental health. If the bonding is not so good, children may remain unhappy, may have anger issues, dissatisfied with themselves and this would negatively impact their physical and mental health.

New learnings:

Bonding with parents and friends can be of great learning. It helps children to learn new things and get educated about new games, fishing, boating-kayaking, pottery, many indoor and outdoor games. With friends, it can be educational by learning about what team management is, learn positive qualities of friends, engage in a new activity like paragliding or scuba diving.

Communication:

Communication is the heart of any relationship. Effective communication is an important part of a strong and healthy family. When we communicate effectively, it helps to bond effectively. Children become good communicators, better listeners and most importantly a good human when the home environment is better. Hence good communication via family bonding is necessary.

Sharing:

Sharing helps to create quality moments. In India, we have so many traditions and occasions where we tend to share food, emotions, culture, traditions with each other. At holiday’s friends can share past experiences of childhood or current joys and sorrows. Children can learn the quality of sharing their food, laughter, joys and sorrows.

Memories:

We often go back to the past to relive old beautiful memories and say “Oh, what were those days?!” Family bonding, travels, get together helps to create wonderful memories for a lifetime.

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All images are courtesy Pixabay

Exam time is stressful for students as well as parents. There are two types of students one, who can be easy-breezy, do their revision and appear their exam while the other set of students, fear exam, take a lot of stress, fall ill just before exams.

Let us understand the Psychological Reaction to Stress

• Constant pressure
• Frustration and anger
• Tension
• Unable to concentrate.
• Psychosomatic symptoms like sweating-sweaty palms, headaches, stomach-aches, racing heart, nail-biting, teeth grinding, racing thoughts.

Why do people experience exam stress?

• Fear of failing
• Fear of getting fewer marks
• When not prepared fully
• Want to do really well
• Unable to grasp.
• Don’t have much time to study
• Need to get a certain result
• Parents and societal expectations
• Don’t understand what they are studying.
• Family pressure
• Competition
• Have other issues happening in their life

How can parents help their children before and while their exams are on-going?

1. Keep realistic expectations and don’t push them too hard
2. Be positive
3. Keep motivating your children no matter what.
4. Help the child in boosting his confidence especially when he/she seems discouraged. Do not displace your anxiety on the child.
5. Try to gain your child’s confidence and discuss his problems with him, help him to find a solution
6. Understand that just good schooling and tuition are not substitutes for emotional cushioning.
7. Do bring family conflicts in between studies of the children.
8. Encourage good sleep patterns and eating habits
9. Provide a comfortable space for them to study and prepare
10. Teach them the importance of study breaks
11. Encourage them to ask the teacher/parents questions if they’re unsure
12. Do not remind them of previous failures.
13. Be light and humorous with the child. Crack jokes to make the exam mood light.
14. Help them know what to expect on the day of the exam
15. Help them be on time for the exam or arrive early
16. After the exam, listen to their concerns and avoid criticizing them.
17. Let them know exams are not the end of the world.

We wish all the students “Best Luck”!!

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All images by Pixabay.

Exam stress affects most students in varying ways. The stress level in school and college students is so high that they get a lot of physical symptoms due to stress.

Teachers and parents need to teach their children how to manage stress and find ways to manage it. Some students can take exams with ease but for many, it’s a task.

Here are some tips to eliminate or reduce your stress. It’s never too late to set up good study habits. Here are some helpful ideas:

Clear your room and table/desk:

Does your mother remind you to clean your room and study table? It’s scientifically correct. The more clutter you have around your room, the less you’re able to concentrate. Physical clutter overloads your brain and impairs your ability to think, which leads to stress.

Take enough breaks:

Research says it’s good to have a 17-minute break every 52 mins. A psychologist also agrees on this fact. Resting is important so that you remember what you have read. In this time period, you can read a newspaper/book/blog or do whatever you feel like doing to relax.

Time table:

Set up a time table and try to stick to it. But also remember that not to be hard on yourself if one or two items are missed. Right from waking up in the morning to sleeping in the night, get all your activities – like studying, reading a book, listening to music, watching some comedy show, lunch-dinner, exercise-playing and sleep schedule needs to be mentioned in the time-table.

Exercise:

A 15-20 min exercise like a walk, basic stretches, deep breathing exercises will help to soothe your mind. Meditation helps to relax the anxiety.

Diet:

Have a healthy diet, no junk food should be consumed and stay away from caffeine as much as possible. Stay hydrated. Have dark chocolate or hot chocolate while studying. Research has shown that an intake of a small amount of dark chocolate reduces stress hormone levels.

Concentrate on progress and not on perfection:

Do you think that you’ll never be able to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself? Do you feel you are good for nothing? If so, you may be a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist will give you stress. Set realistic goals instead of trying to achieve the impossible.

Know your learning style:

Are you a Visual/Audio/Kinaesthetic Learner? Know your best learning style and study. If you are a Visual learner, read and write your answers on a paper or in the book or on the black-white board; if an audio learner, read them as many times you want to so that grasping becomes easy and if you are a kinaesthetic learner, walk while you read/study. This will help you to remember what you study. We all have one particular learning style and if we use it while studying, it will benefit you.

Convert the negative thoughts into a positive one:

For every negative thought find a positive thought. Ex: I haven’t studied 2 chapters yet; I know I will get questions from those two chapters only. I know I have not studied but I will go through it and try to remember as much I can.

Avoid comparison:

Never compare with other students the amount of study you have revised. There could be chances that are you’re doing just fine, but after listening to other people talk about what they’ve learned, it will only stress you out and may make you feel like you aren’t progressing as well as them. Plus, if they themselves are stressed this can affect you and other people’s stress is not what you need right now. Don’t discuss the answers post-exam as well.

Create an environment:

Instrumental music, deep concentration music is available online, light up your room, burn aroma agarbatti/essential oils to have a nice environment to study.

Hope this will help you to study and concentrate better. Team Mentriq wishes you All the best!!!!

To know more about Team Mentriq, click here

All images by Pixabay.

Stress negatively affects students’ performance, ability to focus and confidence. As per research, children aging 3 years of age are also getting stressed. With the competition around, parental pressure and constant comparison with other children makes students more stressed. It becomes difficult to concentrate on studies and fear takes overconfidence.

So how to get over stress?

Take a break

Take out some time to relax. Go through a book, listen to music for a while, watch some de-stressing videos. Do what you like and what will help you in de-stressing.

Breathing Exercises

 Stress gives anxiety about exams, whether the portion will be completed or not, whether you will remember the answers or not. Do some breathing exercises to calm the restless mind. Take deep and long breaths and exhale deeply too.

Stick to your time table

If you haven’t made a time table, then make one and stick to your time table. This will help you to study religiously during study hours and indulge in other activities like playing, having fun, watching TV, etc.

Exercise

Do some basic stretching or whatever suits you. This helps in relaxing your muscles and most importantly diversifies your attention and soothes your mind.

Limit Caffeine and junk food

Caffeine helps to stay awake but also increases levels of cortisol which is a stress hormone increasing stress. Junk food makes you sluggish and feels gloomy. Stay hydrated with healthy drinks like Lemon sharbat or buttermilk or lassi.

Find out the triggers

You may suffer from headaches, backaches, stomach aches which are physical indications of stress. However, try to find out what is your emotional state before any particular event or exam. Any peculiar subject which you are scared of or do not like it. Once you understand you can take steps to decrease or destress.

Make a study plan

If you don’t have a liking towards Maths or Economics, then you need to be consistent in studying the subject. Ensure you practice the same for an hour daily. Plan on when you need to finish the portion and stick to that goal.

Time management

As stated before, stick to your schedule, if you have allotted half an hour for a break then do not extend it. Also if you have allotted three hours to study then stick to those three hours so that you won’t get stressed.

Learn to be assertive

If you are occupied with work given by your family and is affecting your study time or friends request you to stay back for some time to enjoy, be assertive as it would hamper your quality study time leading to stress.

Approach a Psychologist

Stress is harmful if not addressed correctly. One might feel stress is normal especially for college students but that doesn’t mean you need to manage it on our own. If you have the physical manifestations and if it’s affecting your studies, consult a counselor or psychologist.

To know more about Mentriq, click here

All images by, Pixabay