How to Cope With Result Day Anxiety

You’ve completed your exams. You’ve put in the effort and did your best under pressure. For many young people, this should be a moment of relief, but it often starts a period of uncertainty as they wait for results day.

Waiting for results day is time of uneasiness for many students. There can be stress, anxiety, and a lot of inner noise. The wait can be difficult, but there are ways to manage the weeks ahead that might help bring a bit more calm.

Waiting is Hard

Exams may be over, but when results are pending, it’s common to:

• Re-play the exam in your mind, overthinking answers
• Feel a loss of control
• Compare yourself to others
• Imagine the worst-case scenario

And while you can’t fast-forward time, you can find ways to care about your wellbeing while you wait.

How to Cope

1. Pause the Inner Critic

When your thoughts start spiralling, pause and ask:

Is this thought helpful? Is it kind? Is it true?

You can’t change the outcome right now—but you can choose to speak to yourself with patience and understanding. You’ve done what you could. You deserve compassion, not criticism.

2. Focus on What You Can Control

While the results themselves are outside your influence now, your time, energy and mindset are not. Try to shift your focus to things that feel purposeful or grounding:

• Spend time with people who support you
• Reconnect with activities you enjoy but had to pause during revision
• Set small daily goals to create structure and momentum
• Doing something—anything—that brings a sense of progress or calm can help reduce the mental noise.

3. Talk About It

You don’t have to manage this alone. Stress tends to grow in silence. Speaking to a parent, friend, teacher, or support professional can ease the weight. Often, just saying “I’m anxious about results” is enough to release some of the tension.

4. Rest Without Guilt

This may sound simple, but it’s one of the most overlooked forms of self-care: give yourself permission to rest. You are not required to be productive every moment. You are allowed to just be, especially after something as demanding as exams.

Results Matter, But They Aren’t Everything

It’s absolutely okay to care about your grades. They can open doors, and they can reflect hard work. But they are not the only measure of your worth, your intelligence, or your future.

Whether your results bring celebration or disappointment, they do not define who you are. There are many ways forward—and many ways to grow (we know this all too well at Red Balloon!). You are more than a number on a piece of paper.

So take a breath. Trust what you’ve already done. And whatever happens next—there is always a way forward.