Hilarie Stelfox: This is the season of exam stress

May 23 2009 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

MY FRIEND Cathy says her cats are suffering from exam stress.

It’s not that the cats are currently being examined on the finer points of ratting or anything like that.

It’s more that she believes they’re picking up the scent of stress hormones from her two teenage offspring.

Her son is doing his GCSEs while her daughter is in the throes of A-levels, and the cats are behaving badly.

Since she told me about the bath tub incident (a story too tasteless to mention here) I’ve been looking out for signs of exam season stress from my own felines.

Happily, I can report that the only misdemeanour in recent days has been the despatching of a squirrel in the garden by our Great White Shark-cat Jason, who doesn’t look like he could catch a flea, let alone one of nature’s more nimble creatures.

But we have only half the stress, as Firstborn is doing his exams 50 miles away at uni. In fact, it is less than half as The Girl is one of those seemingly relaxed people who doesn’t let unpleasantness get to her. Her greatest worry is that the sun will shine gloriously during the exam season and she’ll miss out on it. So far, her fears have proved groundless.

However, for many young people, the early summer is a time of great stress – and it was always thus. The only thing that’s changed is the weather.

The exam seasons of my youth were remorselessly hot and sunny. The year of my finals at college I got prickly heat and had to sit every examination with damp paper towels draped over my forearms to cool them down.

What I didn’t know then is that the pressure of exams has a profound physiological effect on the human body.

There’s a well proven link between stress and dysfunctions of the immune system. A study of dental students at an American University, for example, found that it took almost twice as long for a wound to heal during exams as it did during the summer vacation.