Speaker 1: 0:00

Is the nursing student coach giving you the strategies you need the most. Hi everybody, and welcome to Nursing Student Coach. My name is Lauren Chapnick, I'm a registered nurse and I am your host. I started this podcast because I want to help put more great nurses into the world. I want to take nursing school and help make it something that is more attainable, so that more of you who are struggling or who are not living up to your full potential in nursing school can find your way through to the other side, because I promise you, being a nurse is one of the best things I've ever done. So I want to talk today.

Speaker 1: 0:50

The rest of this season two of this podcast is all about exams, different strategies, tactics, and today I want to talk about brainwashing yourself. Now, first, I want to share a quick little story about how I even came about this. I was in nursing school. This was my first semester Now. I did an accelerated program not too long ago and my first semester, like a lot of you out there probably, was very overwhelming. It was just like learning a whole new language with these exams and the amount of material was just madness and balancing everything. I have two young kids and it was just so much, and every time I would take an exam for at least the first couple of months, I would just lose it. Like I would be so nervous and I'd be sitting in class taking this exam my heart beating so loud in my chest I thought other people could hear it. I was sweating, I was flushed, literally like the only thing I could hear was my heart beating in my ears and my own voice saying the questions out loud in my mind and second guessing myself, reading through the answers and thinking is that it? No, oh God, I thought that was it and now I forget. I was just. I was a hot mess and one day I'm driving home it was after a farm exam and I'm just replaying every question in my mind, looking stuff up frantically on my phone, like what did I miss? How could I get that wrong? What did I put? I can't even remember that question and I was just driving myself crazy and I thought to myself I looked up at the sky, it was a beautiful day and I just thought I cannot live the rest of nursing school in this state of constant anxiety Like this is this is crazy.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Like I want to be a nurse, so much. There has to be an easier way. And I just kind of zoned out and just started brainstorming. I thought, okay, taking exams makes me very nervous. I have to flip that around. I have to turn this around into I love taking exams. Taking exams is something I get excited for. It's really, really fun. And the next time I go into an exam I am going to just change up my routine. I'm going to literally brainwash myself into loving the entire experience. Because let's think about where this is all headed. This is all headed towards my dream of becoming a nurse, and in order to get there, the only way they've figured out so far is to take this series of exams.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So everything that I used to do to prepare for exams, I decided I was going to do the total opposite. So I used to go into class and I'm sure you've seen this on the day of an exam and have my notes out until the very last moment. I'd be reading over every last note, maybe looking over practice questions. I would basically be studying until the last possible moment. So that was the first thing to go. I said At least 30 minutes before. I'm not even gonna look at my notes If I want to when I wake up in the morning, I can look at them at home, but once I get into my car to get to campus, or however you get to campus, you don't look at them anymore. I have a rule at least 15 minutes before, put the notes away, don't even be in that classroom, go in, put your stuff down, get your spot, whatever you wanna do, and then go outside, walk around, go into a different building, put on headphones, talk to somebody, whatever it is. Do not look at your notes, because you're gonna start to drive yourself crazy and whatever is not in there is not gonna get in there in the last 15 minutes, 30 minutes. So put that away and also get yourself in the game, like get yourself in the mindset of getting ready for this exam, whatever that means to you. So I used to just listen to music. That was really fast, made me really happy. I would take a brisk walk around the building, wherever I was taking the exam, and I would just get myself excited and I would just tell myself I am so excited to take this exam.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Another way you can think of this is that this exam is like a performance. You have been practicing, you have been whatever analogy you wanna use. I talk a lot about each exam as its own mini race. So you're getting ready to go in to run this race and your adrenaline is up. But it's exciting. You can think of it as a performance like you're a musician, and when the lights come up, that's when the first question comes up and maybe you listen to classical piano music, maybe you think of yourself as a piano player and you're going in to play this big concert. When you're taking this test whatever, something really positive that has some weight to it your adrenaline is gonna be going on the day of a big race or a big performance. But this is fun. This is something that you've been preparing for. You've been drilling those practice question. It is in your muscle memory, those daily 10 practice questions that I talk about all the time that you are training your brain into just knowing how to answer test questions. You've been practicing. So when you go in there, you are thrilled. You are so excited to be there.

Speaker 1: 7:16

I've shared this tactic before too. Bring somebody in with you in your imagination. Obviously, you're not gonna bring friends in with you, but let's say you find your mom really supportive, or your husband, your grandmother, your best friend. Let's say you have these support people in your life. Bring them into the exam with you. Set them up around you in your mind. Imagine that your whole cheerleading section is there. They'd be there for you at a big performance or a big race, right? Imagine that they're there with you when you're taking that exam. There's no question you're gonna be nervous. That's fine. But take a breath when that first exam question pops up. Take a breath and say everybody who loves me and supports me is here. I am so excited. This is my big day. I am ready for this. Let's go. Let's do this. And when those exam questions start coming, you read them twice, you select your answer and you move on and you get through it. And with each one you stop and you say I'm doing an amazing job and remember my strategy of taking each exam five to 10 questions at a time, treating that as its own little mini test, stopping, clearing your mind and then moving on to the next five, to the next 10, to the next 10, to the next 10, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 8:48

Exams are daunting, but you can tackle them by brainwashing yourself. Brainwash yourself into loving those exams and I promise you, things will start to shift. If you Let the anxiety have that power over you, you're not going to do as well. But if you take back that power and you say no, I am just going to brainwash myself into loving this entire experience and just walking right into it. Walk right into whatever scares you and I guarantee you it's going to lose its power and you're just going to realize all this is is a series of questions, and the more prepared I am, the more I've practiced, the more excited I am for the big day.

Speaker 1: 9:48

So remember anything you were doing before. Throw it out the window. You are allowed to just start fresh, start clean and start doing the opposite of everything you used to do. And if it's working for you, share it with your friends, just say you know what? Listen to this podcast episode, share it with them and just say guys, let's brainwash ourselves into loving these exams because they're not going anywhere. You're going to have exams from now until the day you graduate, until the day you pass that NCLEX, and if you go back to grad school or you get certifications, more exams are coming.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So do you want to hate them and suffer through them and dread them and get anxiety and lose sleep over them? Or do you want to flip your mindset and say no, you know what I'm going to trick myself. I'm going to trick my brain into loving this and I'm going to start doing better and better and better. I hope this helps you for your next exam and any exam you have in the future, because those exams don't hold any power over you. You are the one in control. You are in charge of your own life. You are the one that is going to be the best kick-ass nurse that this world has ever seen. So go out there and crush that next exam. Until next time, have an amazing day. Bye-bye.