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Your question: “How to get rid of anxiety before an exam?”
You need some energy to perform well
Today’s question is: How do I get rid of my anxiety before an exam?
Answer: You don’t get “rid” of anxiety. A little bit of anxiety has been shown (in over a hundred years of research) to be a good thing. Remember the “Yerkes-Dodson curve” (see illustration). Yerkes and Dodson were two psychologists who showed, at the beginning of the 20th century, that there’s a direct relationship between stress and performance. Too much or too little stress and performance suffers. You Continue reading
Test Prep and Fear of flying, part 2
Afraid? Again?
I’ve recently started coaching three very different people who have exactly the same issue with tests: they’re all afraid of failing. To be accurate, they’re all afraid of failing again.
Each of them (a high school, college and graduate student) had a bad experience in the past with a test—one didn’t finish in time, one didn’t get the score she wanted and one actually failed. I’m using the word “bad experience” instead of “failure.” While every one of us has had a bad experience with a test none of us is a failure because of it.
Following what I wrote in my last post: when you have a bad experience you have two choices with how you are going to hold that experience. Choice #1: You say to yourself, “Oh, no, it happened before and it’s going to happen again. For sure. No way I’m going to Continue reading
Fear of flying, part 1
Do you really have to be so frightened every time?
When I was a young child — 9 years old to be exact– my parents sent me on a plane, alone, to visit my beloved aunt in Florida. It was exciting to travel by myself and I was treated royally by the flight crew.
Somewhere along the way the plane got into a big storm and started bouncing around terribly. This was in the days of prop planes, much smaller than the ones today and much more vulnerable to bad weather. The turbulence got worse and worse and the plane was now getting thrown around in the sky, People started screaming. I was so scared. My aunt said that when I got off the plane in Miami and ran into her arms she saw that I had bitten clear through my bottom lip.
This event had a terrible effect on me for years every time I went into an airplane . For days Continue reading
Dreaming of test anxiety?
Delia Lloyd. Blogger and Journalist
I was introduced to an interesting blog today and the post was apt for this site “Do You Every Really Leave High School?” and it’s from the blog RealDelia: Finding Yourself in Adulthood,” written by an American-born journalist in London, Delia Lloyd. The post focuses on the anxiety dreams many of us continue to have about tests. In my 35 years as I performance psychologist I’ve heard so many dreams about test anxiety that I’ve lost count. When I was a young child–just around the time I started school — I started having a full-blown nightmare about taking tests. The dream all took place on an enormous sheet of lined paper, the older kind with the red margin running up and down the left side. The teacher– something of a Alice in Wonderland Red Queen type — was standing at the top line, looking very imperious and scary. I had to go up to the top line on the page and answer a question. My Jungian analyst friends would probably have a field day with this day, but Continue reading
Test anxiety? There’s help. Just ask.
Let go of suffering: you have options!
Something came across my desk today which I want to applaud and call your attention to. It’s a posting by the McNamara Academic Center at the University of Minnesota with helpful tips for test anxiety.
This kind of help is so useful for two important reasons: (1) it’s sound advice, and (2) it shows that there is help and you don’t need to feel alone if you are suffering from test anxiety.
I encourage you to take advantage of the Continue reading
5th graders prepping for SAT. Really?
The right answer? Strengthen yourself.
The Silicon Valley Mercury News today published an article today about the SAT and ACT. Author Purvy Mody starts off by saying “The words SAT and ACT can conjure anxiety for even the most academically confident student. Standardized testing has become so talked about and so prepared for that I have heard of fifth-graders enrolling in SAT prep classes — something I am highly against.”
5th graders prepping for the SAT? AYK? (are you kidding?)
Mody ends the article with this: “Take a class if you need the structure, or get the official books and practice on your own. Whatever method you use, the most important thing is Continue reading
When the Doc gives you a prescription, take the medicine
I recently had a Skype session with a client in Asia. He is preparing for the GMAT as he wants to go to business school in the US. A very bright guy who suffers terribly from performance anxiety. We made great progress in the Skype session– I was able to observe and point out to him the various things he was thinking and doing that were adding to his stress. now this is a great example of why some people might need personal coaching besides reading the workbook. okay, back to this GMAT guy. I taught him the tools he needs for reducing the stress so he could improve his performance. They are all based on the nine core tools in the book. All I do is tweak them, fine tune them for his specific needs. The difference, during the session, itself, was noticeable. Great! But wait. Now comes the next important part. Continue reading
Ask for the quiet you need with confidence
I climbed into a taxi after a hard day at work. The driver gave me a friendly greeting, but something was wrong — for me. The volume of the cab radio was up, way up. I was looking forward to a quiet ride back to the hotel. This was anything but. What should I do?
There was a time when I was afraid to ask a taxi driver to turn the radio down or off (“It’s their cab!”). But I got over that: why be afraid to ask? So I did, and I do, and for the most part taxi drivers comply, though a few give me the “I’d rather not” vibe.
This driver turned the radio off. The cab was quiet. I settled back in the seat and let go of the day’s cares.
The morale: do what you can to achieve the quiet you need.
And if the driver had said “No!”? Well, there’s always another taxi. I look at it as a learning moment. A moment to build confidence. A moment to turn away from the mental chatter that disconnects me from my spirit.
De-stress anywhere, anytime.
Calmness observed
After a long day at work yesterday I walked down a main and very busy thoroughfare in Portland. My head was full of the day’s events. I was still carrying around a pile of cares with me as well as all of the anticipated concerns about tomorrow.
Unexpectedly I came across a fountain with a beautiful sculpture. I stopped. The calmness radiating from the white marble and the sounds of the fountain gently permeated my busy mind and tired body. I stopped walking and took in the sight and sounds of what I’d just stumbled upon. I took a long deep breath.
The noise in my head and the tension in my body faded quickly and then I was left simply taking in the statue and the fountain. I walked around it, looking at it from all sides. Then I caught its reflection in the window of the skyscraper behind it. Something about that was soothing.
Reflecting the peace within
It was like seeing the still center within all the movement around me.
As you go about your day look for the quiet spots, the silent spaces, the moments of respite. Let yourself become absorbed by them. Breathe deeply down to your belly. Feel your feet on the ground.
Revel in the peace. It’s around us — and inside of us — all the time.
Please share with us what you discover.
The best strategy for test anxiety is…
Prepare yourself!
A blog post about preparing for the the US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) came through today. I’d like to analyze it a bit and add my two cents (quoting the post in italics)
The most straightforward strategy to do well at taking an exam is undoubtedly by just taking practice exams. It really is as approximate as you will get to taking the real examination. Whenever you only possess time to finish just one thing to get ready for… Continue reading
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