Ways to Calm Your Mind Before Your Medical School Interview

Are you stressed about answering the med school interview questions? Anxiety can affect even the best of us, but it's not all bad. Some degree of anxiety can actually work as motivation, giving you the required push and keeping you on your toes. But if the level of nervousness rises, it could impact your memory and have a negative impact on your medical school interview performance.

Here are some way to calm your mind and ease the stress.

1.    Note Down Your Thoughts

Writing down thoughts or any worrying questions asked in the medical school interview can help ease your mind. It is one of the most therapeutic things you can do to lower your anxiety. Putting down your thoughts on paper helps you revisit them at a later time. Also, it changes your thought pattern from chaotic to organised. You can also choose to record them in a digital format to get the pressure off your mind.

2.    Practice Cognitive Distancing

You can control your mind’s pessimistic tendencies by finding positive alternative scenarios. This is known as cognitive distancing. It is based on the concept that our mind worries about things that it feels are true, even if they are not. Remember that the worst-case scenario isn’t the only possibility.

3.    Try Breathing Exercises

When you’re feeling anxious, your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. To counter this, breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 2 seconds, and then breathe out for 4 seconds. Slow and mindful breathing activates the hypothalamus to send neurohormones that inhibit the stress hormones and lead to a relaxation response.

This will relieve any anxiety through the physiological effect of the hypothalamus on the nervous system, allowing you to practice the medical school interview questions in a better way.

4.    Chant a Mantra

Mantra is a word or a phrase that you can repeat to calm yourself. It can be something like, “Everything will be okay,” or “I’ve got this,” or any other phrase that speaks to you. Research shows that chanting mantras reduces the activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for self-judgement. This is the same part of the brain makes you worry about the future and fret over the past.

Just repeat your mantra and focus your thoughts on it. If you find yourself getting distracted, return to the mantra. This will go a long way in helping you deal with the medical interview questions.

5.    Mind Your Diet

Make sure you eat a balanced diet in the weeks leading up to your UCAT interview. Some foods that can help reduce anxiety are salmon, yogurt, bananas, oats, green tea, dark chocolate and chamomile tea.

Although these techniques can help you to relax, what will clinch the deal is preparing for UCAT medical school interview under the guidance of a reputed institute like ICanMed, which will help you prepare for the med school interview questions in a systematic way