I have been asked to throw light on how to keep stress at bay while preparing for JEE. And I bet that if you really wanted to know them, you would run a google search and then go through the top 5-6 search results and assume you know everything about dealing with JEE-prep related stress. Sorry to say but none of those 1000 ways are really going to help you. They may help you to get distracted for a while from yoor hectic schedule but not de-stress you entirely.

Cracking JEE is not just about how good you are at academics but it’s even about how well you manage your emotions at this critical stage of your life, when you are inching slowly from adolescence into adulthood. I don’t have 10 ways but I do have that one way which could make all those 1000 ways work. Before you read any further, I want you to know me and understand why my way is better than those 1000 ways.

Let us move three years back and take a short look at what I was doing then. I was a 10 GP scorer (in 10th class) from a middle class family. I had a girlfriend and very few close friends. Just like many other children across the country, even I was exploring engineering or medicine as a career option. Being from a poor background my father took a loan of 5 lakhs (an amount he might have never seen in his entire life) for my coaching. Like every aspirant I began my journey with a lot of enthusiasm and soon I was among the top 10 in my class. Being so engrossed in studies I stopped sports, hobbies didn’t make any new friends (my biggest mistake). In spite of all this, I would talk to my old friends and specially to my girlfriend and soon they became a very important part of my life. The first year went good and now the expectation from me was at peak.

One morning I received a message saying-“Keshav, I am no more interested in you, I’m moving on with Rahul (my best friend)”. This one line was enough to destroy my hardship of one year. I lost interest in studies. With every passing day my result went down,the stress and pressure kept increasing every single moment. And soon I found myself getting in to depression. I had no friend to whom i could say all this, my faculty and parents lost all hope. I tried every thing right from meditation to sports, cigarettes to alcohol….but nothing could help me. I was soon a chain smoker. Then how did I become an IITian?

A turn came in my life when I saw the receipt of my father’s saving account named after me to pay back my loans and further education. Right at that moment I was compelled to ask myself what the hell was I doing and why? After that i didn’t need any meditation to come out of my stress and I surged ahead putting in 100% effort into my studies. It may sound like Chetan Bhagat’s fiction, but it is not. So, what is that one ultimate way to relieve stress? The answer is there are only two gates to get in to IIT- 1st is if you are interested in subjects (which most of the aspirants are not)and if you are, not many stressful conditions come in your way. And the 2nd one is you need a reason , a big reason for why you want to clear the exam, a reason which keeps you motivated all day and if you have a strong motivation, no stress, no pressure could ever stop you. Just ask yourself what if you can’t get a rank? If you get the right answer, no one could stop you from getting it and if you don’t then believe me IITs are not the only place….don’t be a part of crowd if you really don’t have a reason to get into it but don’t let the stress to drive you to some shady private engineering institutions. And finally remember- never hold a cigarette for removing your stress. Make good friends at every place; don’t shy away from your hobbies and sports for JEE. Follow what you want not what the crowd is following and if you don’t have any other interest then you have got a perfect reason to study…