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if you watch Last Week TonightYou might not have noticed that every episode starts the exact same way… and I’m not talking about the theme song. As the audience applauds wildly and the camera zooms in on host John Oliver, he performs a ritual. John slams his hands on his desk, stretches his arms out to the sides, says “welcome” three times, claps once, and then introduces himself.

Rituals are an important part of life. All humans and even some other mammals seem to engage in rituals. We often associate rituals with religion, but we also find them in sports, art, social organizations and daily life. Rituals can be performed individually or collectively. But most importantly for our purposes, ritual can be a way to help students manage. anxiety and you can perform better academically.

What is a ritual?

Before discussing the psychological impact of ritual, it is important to define what a ritual is. Psychologists suggest that there are three characteristics that distinguish a ritual from a habit or routine.

1. one ritual one fixed set of behavior It needs to be done the same way, in the same order, every time. John Oliver drums, stretches, and claps as he sings the same line every time. In most cases, if a person gets a step wrong they have to start over, otherwise the ritual will not be completed.
2. There is a ritual no instrumental purpose. Behaviors Don’t commit to the task at hand in a clear and concrete way. Nothing John Oliver does is necessarily related to his goal of cracking jokes for 20 minutes. But repeating this familiar sequence will probably get him started without having to think about how to start.
3. There is a ritual symbolic meaning to the person who did this. Only John Oliver knows why he does what he does, but it gets him ready to film his show. Rituals can be linked to: spiritual entities, culture or family, but sometimes they just feel right for reasons you can’t put your finger on.

Compare these features to a routine like preparing breakfast. I usually scramble three eggs, toast some toast, wash an apple, peel and slice a banana, spread crunchy peanut butter and banana on my toast, and drizzle ketchup over my eggs. This routine makes me feel ready to go about my day, but it’s not a ritual. I don’t care if I change the order or swap apples for strawberries and just keep going; these behaviors clearly serve the purpose of eating, and eating breakfast has no deeper meaning.

Rituals reduce anxiety and improve performance

For a series of studies, psychologists invented a ritual for students to perform:

1. Draw a picture of how you feel right now.
2. Sprinkle salt over your drawing.
3. Count to five out loud.
4. Wrinkle your drawing.
5. Throw your drawing in the trash.

Nonsense, right? But students who performed this ritual before publicly singing “Don’t Stop Believin'” exhibited lower heart rates and self-reported anxiety, leading to better performance (as measured by the “Karaoke Revolution” video game ).

More importantly, students who have performed this ritual before stressful They performed better on the math exam than students who waited silently for a few minutes. Interestingly, the effect of the ritual disappeared when the students were told that these were just random behaviors. Although a ritual can be arbitrary or even downright stupid, it must be filled with meaning to work.

Why does ritual calm us down?

Psychologists have not yet definitively determined the answer to this question. Engaging in a series of simple actions that are entirely within our control can help us bring order to the world. Performing rituals can distract us from our worries. Or there may be rituals placeboUsing the power of belief to reduce anxiety and help us through stressful experiences.

Ritual can also expand our awareness of ourselves and place our goal in the larger context of our life. In another study, participants learned a nine-step ritual that included hand movements and breathing. They then tried a challenging test known as the Go/No-Go task. In this case, the people performing the ritual were no better at the task, but their electroencephalographic (EEG) readings showed that they weren’t that agitated when they messed up. In other words, the ritual can help students calm down before the exam and not panic when something goes wrong.

Using rituals in education

I think we do a good job of incorporating ritual into young students’ lives to add structure and predictability to their days. But rituals tend to disappear as we expect older children and young adults to perform more and more rituals. self regulating. I say we bring ritual back into the classroom to help students succeed.

Although the ritual is meant to reduce anxiety, the behaviors are not necessarily traditionally anxiety-reducing, like breathing or breathing. meditation. Lever impressive article Double immersion in behavioral science ways to reduce anxiety as a ritual can be effective. However, students can also sprinkle salt on the paper and throw it in the trash. The order of behaviors does not matter as long as they are fixed, repeated, non-instrumental, and meaningful in some way.

The most obvious application for me is using ritual to relieve test/math anxiety. Each student can develop his or her own ritual, just like basketball players have their own rituals before making a free throw. Individual rituals help ensure that each student feels comfortable with the behaviors (especially for students prone to compulsions) and imbue their rituals with their own meaning. Instructors can then add 3 minutes of “ritual time” to exam days.

Or a class may develop a collective ritual. We clearly see in society how powerful rituals can be when done in groups. Having a ritual that begins each lesson or exam can encourage attendance because students won’t want to miss it. Even these shared behaviors Developing students’ sense of belonging. No matter how you share the power of ritual with students, performing a few simple behaviors can help students feel less anxious about their work and perform better.