Students’ Successful Journey Of Conquering Test Anxiety
What Is Test Anxiety?Test anxiety is the experience of feeling anxious, distracted, upset and overwhelmed in anticipation of an exam and the results that might occur. Just like most other types of anxiety, test anxiety stems from a panic type feeling that usually centers on the future and results from how you’ve chosen to think and focus over time.
Have you been in the same situation before or just recently? If you have, you might possess this common condition called test anxiety. With this state, you will feel a great deal of nervousness before taking a test. Getting a bit nervous prior to taking the test is normal. Feeling this way can help in boosting your performance for the test. But this normal feeling of nervousness becomes intense for those people who have test anxiety. They become extremely anxious preventing them from concentrating on their test thus lowering the standard of their performance.
Test Anxiety Defined.An alarming type of performance anxiety, test anxiety makes someone feel terribly pressured to perform well in a test. Butterflies in the stomach which eventually turns into a stomachache or tension worsened to a headache are among its effects. Some people may shake or sweat a lot. Others can hear their hearts beat really fast even before the test papers are distributed to them. The worst case of someone having this type of anxiety is the feeling of throwing up or passing out.
So if you want to overcome test anxiety that might cause you to bomb on the ACT test, keep in mind these three causes of bombing on tests and learn more by taking a good ACT test prep course that will teach you how to score your best on the ACT.
When we haven’t ate, slept, had enough nutrition or drank enough water while stressed, our body will tense up. We then tend to hold our body in positions that only cause additional fatigue and panic, prohibiting us from focusing properly.To cure this, change your physiology to a peak state! You will feel the difference! When the body changes, the mind follows! Speak and move with power to turn around your state. Go for a brief walk, hold your shoulders back, focus your eyes like you would if you were in your perfect, crystal clear studying zone! Holding this physiology for 10 minutes will make a huge difference!Eliminating these three habits is a great starting place for you to begin to cure testing panic.road to adulthood. But unlike other tests, this one requires you to perform like a trained monkey in front of a complete stranger while they critique your performance. It’s enough to give anybody a bad case of nerves!
Unfortunately, the presence of anxiety literally does make us dumber! Anxiety is fear about a future event. When you are in a state of fear there is a carefully and automatically orchestrated series of events that occur in the body. Long ago it was needed to ensure a human’s survival. Today it can be more of a hindrance for most of us because it is rare that our life is actually in danger. Unfortunately, our brain doesn’t know the difference between an actual threat (a tiger chasing us) and a perceived threat (not doing well on the SAT test).
In layman’s terms, here is what happens when we are in a state of fear. The fear causes the amygdala in your brain to send out the message that it is fight or flight time! Cortisol, a stress hormone, gets released in your body, digestion is disrupted, and your heart rate increases to deliver more blood to the muscles in preparation for fight or flight. Finally, and most importantly, the functioning of the prefrontal cortex is disrupted. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain responsible for, among other things, decision-making and problem-solving. It is vital to test taking yet superfluous during flight or flight. Your subconscious mind which is in charge of this intricate system of survival does not know whether it is an actual or perceived threat. It just knows you fear and it responds accordingly. Overcoming anxiety is an important factor for doing well on the test.
If the usual suggestions for dealing with anxiety aren’t relieving it know that you are not alone. Often these suggestions cannot overcome the source of the problem because the source lies within the subconscious mind.If you have had any previous negative experiences in your past with respect to “performing”, perhaps during a recital, sports event, or public speaking, it is probably affecting you today. Your subconscious mind “remembers” events that caused you concern. From that moment forward it has been constantly scanning the environment looking for the same “clues” in order to protect you from experiencing this pain again. When it finds one you know it because you experience it as “worry”.
Assume that you’ll be successful: How many millions of people have passed the driving test? Right. The odds are in your favour. You still need to prepare, but if Joe Schmoe can take the test and pass, so can you. Picture yourself passing. Do it several times before the test starts.
Can the subconscious mind be reached? Fortunately in the last 20 years there are new stress reduction techniques that can be highly effective with many issues including test anxiety. They are easily learned, have the ability to access the subconscious mind, and have been scientifically proven to be effective. Once learned the individual has a stress reduction tool he or she can use to self manage stress wherever it may appear in life.
One of these, EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, founded by a Stanford engineer, Gary Craig, utilizes meridians, the energy pathways within our bodies. You may know them if you have ever had acupuncture. Another technique, Psych-K, allows us to test for and change sabotaging beliefs residing in our subconscious mind to beliefs in support of our goals.If test anxiety remains an issue for you, I encourage you to explore and learn about these techniques. Wouldn’t it feel great to go into the test feeling calm and confident? Wouldn’t it be fabulous if you knew you were going to do well? As Henry Ford said, “If you think you can do a thing or you think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
Learn more about Anxiety Test as well as Anxiety Disorder Symptoms , now.