{"id":5314,"date":"2020-01-09T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T13:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=5314"},"modified":"2020-01-01T17:26:25","modified_gmt":"2020-01-01T22:26:25","slug":"an-unexpected-strategy-to-manage-student-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/an-unexpected-strategy-to-manage-student-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unexpected Strategy to Manage Student Stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

School includes lots of stress. And, sometimes that stress interferes with academic life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It might make it harder for students to encode new information. It might make it harder for them to show what they know — on tests, for example.<\/p>\n

So, how can we help students manage their stress?<\/p>\n

We’ve got some research suggesting that mindfulness helps<\/a>. Can we do anything else?<\/p>\n

Rethinking Our First Instinct<\/h2>\n

Imagine that a student comes to me and says, “Whoa! I’m really stressed out about this test…<\/em>”<\/p>\n

My gut instinct might be to say something reassuring: “No worries — you totally got this. Just stay calm and I’m sure you’ll do fine.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

This instinct, however, has a built-in problem. An anxious student experiences well-known physiological<\/strong> symptoms: a racing heart, sweaty palms, dry mouth, etc.<\/p>\n

My student might try to persuade himself that he’s calm. But, all that physiological evidence reminds him — second by second — that he\u00a0really isn’t calm<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Researcher Alison Wood Brooks wondered: could she encourage students to adopt a positive\u00a0<\/b><\/span>emotional framework <\/em>with those same<\/strong> physiological signs<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Rather than encouraging a student to “be calm,” Brooks thought she might encourage him to “get excited.” After all, the bodily signs of excitement are a lot like those of stress. And, whereas stress feels mostly negative, excitement is (obviously) positive.<\/p>\n

Testing (and Retesting) the Hypothesis<\/h2>\n

Brooks tested out this hypothesis<\/a> in an impressive variety of stressful situations.<\/p>\n

She started by having participants sing in a karaoke contest<\/strong>. One group prepped by saying “I am anxious.” A second group said “I am excited.” A third didn’t say either of those things.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, the “excited” group sang their karaoke song considerably more accurately (81%) than their “anxious” peers (53%).<\/p>\n

She then tried the ultimate in stress-inducing situations: public speaking<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Half of the speakers prepped by declaring themselves “calm” (which was my go-to suggestion above). The other half declared themselves “excited.”<\/p>\n

As Brooks expected, independent judges rated the “excited” speakers superior to the “calm” speakers in persuasiveness, competence, and confidence.<\/p>\n

One more approach may be most interesting to classroom teachers: a\u00a0math test<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When getting reading for a “very difficult” test including eight math questions, students were told either “try to remain calm” or “try to get excited.”<\/p>\n

You know how this story ends.<\/p>\n

The students instructed to “get excited” scored, on average, about 1\/2 point higher than their “calm” peers.<\/p>\n

Every way that Brooks could think to measure the question, the advice to “get excited” proved more beneficial than the traditional advice to “remain calm.”<\/p>\n

Not Persuaded Yet?<\/h2>\n

Perhaps this video, which neatly recaps Brooks’s study, will persuade you. Check out the handy graphic at 1:30.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1rRgElTeIqE<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We might be inclined to reassure our anxious students, and advise them to “remain calm.” This research, however, suggests a surprising alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,74],"class_list":["post-5314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-stress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5314"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5322,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5314\/revisions\/5322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}