`Relax," says the song - but how do you relax when the exams are looming and the future is filled with thoughts of electro-negativity values, specific heat capacities and the preservation, according to Thucydides, of Mytilene.
What do you do when an unending sea of facts and figures are crashing incessantly along the shore of your consciousness? How do you switch off and take a break?
You can always try herbal tea, yoga or transcendental meditation, but there are other ways. A pair of visiting Danish students have varying advice. Thomas Sorensen from Espjert recommends "a three mile run the night before". And it helps, he says, "if you've done something crazy in your life that you can think about, like a parachute jump or a bungee jump, something that lets you know you're still alive. But this is not something you do the night before," he warns.
Jakob Bjerregaard from Aarhus has a calmer approach. "Just talking to someone about being nervous" can help, he says. "Don't hide your feelings. I talk to friends on the phone. That can cheer you up."
A quick straw-poll around the office elicits a list of timely suggestions. A vigorous bout of physical exercise is always a good release from the mental strain, says one helpful former examinee. Taking a hike up a mountain where you break sweat and then jump into a cold mountain tarn, says another energetic advocate of the physical exercise beats the blues persuasion. Hey, we don't want to get pneumonia. Bathe in olive oil, says another well-intentioned individual. Yes, well, moving right along.
Stressed-out students should "sit in a darkened room with a scented candle and think pleasant thoughts," says a born-again syberite-cum-hippie. "Then you should go and lie in a bath and relax."
The Internet offers up a few interesting facts on the subject. A list of topics under "chilling out" includes "a refrigerative device intended for medicinal purposes to chill" and "the physiological phartanin effect of chilling on the diurnal rhythm of enzymes". And the symptoms of chilling, it says, are rocking, wobbling and or sluggish movement.
Figuring out how such facts might contribute to our thesis on relaxing could also help to distract, or even deaden, any stressed and over-active brain.
Laughter, says the old adage, is the best medicine. And a good comedy gig can help the tired and weary to find new energy and zest.
"What I used to do is bring my walkman and listen to my favourite music in between the exams and that used calm me down. I always associate the Waterboys with English," says Dublin-based artist Beth O'Halloran.
Mark Doherty, an actor and a comedian, is unflinching in his indifference. He says you can't teach students to relax because they are already the experts. "They are the best in the world at relaxing," he says. The fact that young people are "stressed for two or three days in the year is no bad thing. Teaching them how to relax is like teaching your granny to suck eggs!
"I want to see them stressed for a few days."
