How to Keep Calm under Pressure

Exam pressure, deadlines, job interviews and presentations can all make you feel like a nervous wreck (身心俱疲的人)【小题1】   .

First, a breathing exercise.

Take a deep belly breath through your nose for five seconds, hold it for a second, then push all the air out through your nose, slowly, counting to five.【小题2】 Under stress we tend to breathe very quickly as our body prepares for unexpectedly dangerous situations. By breathing deeply and slowly, you can change the message your brain’s receiving from “danger” to “all is well”. So the next time you feel panic rising, use deep breathing through your nose to force your body into a state of calm.

Now you’re ready for the humming (哼唱).

【小题3】 Studies in how we regulate heart rate have shown, that humming can stimulate one of the most important parts of the body — the vagus nerve (迷走神经). So the next time you feel your heart racing, sing a song or just hum a note and let yourself restore calm.

The final tip is to focus.

When you’re busy it’s tempting (诱人) to multi-task, but if you want to stay calm and actually get stuff done, don t. 【小题4】 When you do two things at once, it gets overstimulated and floods your body with stress hormones. Doing one thing at a time, you can quickly calm down.

【小题5】