Why the First Ten Minutes Feel the Most Difficult
For most Malaysian postgraduate students, the most intense anxiety in their viva voce is concentrated in the first ten minutes. This is the period when you are settling into the examination room, when the examiners are establishing their approach, and when the social and cognitive demands of the situation are entirely new and unpredictable. Once the examination is underway — once you have answered the first few questions and feel the rhythm of the conversation — anxiety typically reduces substantially. The challenge is managing the first ten minutes, which are disproportionately difficult relative to the rest of the session.
Understanding how to handle nerves in the first ten minutes of your viva helps you get through the transition period before your natural scholarly confidence takes over. The techniques that work are practical, learnable, and far more useful than generic advice to “just relax” or “be yourself” — both of which are easier said than implemented when you are sitting in front of two examiners who have spent the last week reading your thesis critically.
What Is Actually Happening Physiologically
The physical symptoms of viva anxiety — racing heart, dry mouth, shallow breathing, shaking hands, difficulty finding words — are all expressions of the stress response. Your body is treating the viva as a threat, which triggers the same physiological cascade that evolved to help humans respond to physical danger. The problem is that the stress response is counterproductive in an examination context. It narrows your cognitive focus, impairs access to memory, reduces verbal fluency, and makes it harder to think clearly and speak coherently — exactly the opposite of what you need.
The physiological response is not fully controllable, but it is manageable. The techniques below work by directly addressing the physiological state rather than trying to reason your way out of anxiety, which rarely succeeds when the stress response is already activated.
Breathing as a Physiological Reset
Controlled breathing is the most reliably effective immediate tool for managing nerves in the first ten minutes of your viva because it directly activates the parasympathetic nervous system — the system that counteracts the stress response. The specific technique that research supports most consistently is extended exhalation: breathing in for four counts, holding for two, and breathing out for six to eight counts. The extended exhalation is the part that activates the parasympathetic system; the inhalation counts matter less.
Practise this breathing pattern for two to three minutes before you enter the examination room — in the corridor, in the bathroom, in the car. Once inside the room, you can continue breathing this way without it being visible to the examiners. Breathing slowly and deeply is not noticeable from across a table. It has no negative effect on how you appear to others and a significant positive effect on how calm and clear-headed you feel.
The First Question Almost Always Goes Well
In most Malaysian viva examinations, the session opens with a question that is deliberately broad and relatively easy to answer — something like “Can you begin by giving us a brief overview of your study?” or “Can you tell us what motivated you to pursue this research?” These opening questions exist precisely to give the candidate an opportunity to settle into the examination before the more challenging probing questions begin.
Knowing this in advance is useful preparation for handling nerves in the first ten minutes of your viva. You are not going to be asked the hardest question first. The first question is designed to warm the candidate up, not to catch them out. Having a two-to-three-minute overview of your study prepared and practised — a clear, confident summary of your research question, methodology, and key findings — means that even if your nerves are at their peak during the first question, you have a prepared answer that you can deliver without having to construct it under pressure.
Physical Grounding Techniques for the Room
When you sit down in the examination room, there are small physical actions that help manage the stress response by giving your nervous system signals of safety and control. Place both feet flat on the floor rather than crossing your legs or shifting restlessly — this grounded posture sends physical signals of stability. Place your copy of the thesis on the table in front of you if you are permitted to bring it — holding or touching a familiar object reduces anxiety. Sit up straight but not rigidly — upright posture is associated with higher confidence and cognitive performance in research on embodied cognition.
When the examiners speak, make deliberate eye contact rather than looking down or away. This is harder when you are anxious but it signals engagement and confidence, and the act of making eye contact itself tends to reduce the social anxiety that makes eye contact feel difficult. Smile briefly when introduced. These small behaviours activate the social connection systems that counteract the threat response.
What to Do When Your Mind Goes Blank
Even with good preparation and breathing, there may be a moment in the first ten minutes of your viva when your mind goes blank — when a question is asked and your memory returns nothing useful. This is a normal and common experience under stress, and how you handle it matters. Do not panic, do not start talking randomly in the hope of finding your answer mid-sentence, and do not apologise excessively.
Instead, pause deliberately and calmly. You can say: “Let me take a moment to think about that” or “Could you repeat the question, please?” Both of these responses are entirely appropriate in a viva. Examiners know that thinking before speaking is a sign of care, not inadequacy. After a slow breath, your memory will usually return what you need. If it does not, you can say honestly: “I want to give you a considered answer to that — could I come back to it after we have discussed some of the other aspects of the methodology?” This response is far better than a panicked ramble and demonstrates exactly the kind of composed, self-aware scholarly manner that examiners in Malaysian universities recognise as maturity. Once you are through the first ten minutes, the rest of the viva will almost always feel more manageable than it did going in.
