There are moments in life when everything is suddenly put to the test. For students it is often the semester exam, for prospective lawyers the bar exam and for many others it is the big day. Weeks have been spent studying. The facts are actually in place. And yet something happens that many people can't put into perspective.
Shortly before the exam, the inner state changes. The body becomes restless. The mind suddenly wonders whether the knowledge is enough. When reading the tasks, the lines become blurred. You know that you know it and yet it feels as if someone has closed the drawer with the stored knowledge.
This is exactly what I was able to accompany again this week. A young student came to my practice. Intelligent, hard-working, consistent. And yet he faltered one or two hours before every exam. Uncertainty. A chaotic mind. A body that activates stress even though there is no real danger.
When stress ramps up, the brain switches from analytical thinking to an ancient survival mode. Access to knowledge then works less well, even though it has been there for a long time. This reaction is completely normal, but it gets in the way of many people at precisely the crucial moments.
This is exactly what you see in elite sport. Athletes train for months and on the day of the competition, everything is decided in just a few minutes. Physically, they would be ready, but it is the mind that determines how much of it can be called upon. Exams work in a surprisingly similar way.
The student told me how he feels when he's skiing. Up on the slope, just the snow, the mountain air and him. The view becomes clear. The focus sharpens. Everything else becomes still. That is flow. Not magic, not happiness, but a natural state that the body already knows.
During hypnosis, we released his inner blockages and consciously strengthened this sense of focus. We anchored it in the body and linked it to a sign. An inner switch that he can now activate at any time. When studying and, of course, on the day of the exam. I still don't know how his exams will turn out. But I do know that he will go into it feeling different inside and will have access to what he has learned.
I often experience changes like this. Last year, I accompanied a young woman who had to take the written and oral bar exam for the second time. The nervousness was enormous. So was the pressure. Today, she is admitted to the bar. Not because she suddenly knew more, but because she became free inside.
Blockages in exam situations are not a personal failure. They are a sign of how finely tuned our nervous system works. Hypnosis helps to calm this old alarm mode so that body and mind work together again. The knowledge remains the same. It is the access to it that changes.
Inner security does not come about by chance. It grows where we regain access to our abilities. And this is exactly what can be trained.
Addendum 10.02.2026: The student wrote to me today to say that he has passed his exams. I am delighted for him and very proud of him.
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