No More Test Anxiety!

Test anxiety is a physical response that happens when you feel threatened by an upcoming exam. If you suffer from test anxiety, you might feel queasy, lightheaded, jittery, and short of breath when thinking about or taking an exam. Test anxiety also affects your heart rate, your ability to concentrate, and your sleep. These reactions are different from and more severe than the normal "butterflies-in-your-stomach" feeling before an exam.

Do you want to be free from test anxiety for good? Try these tips:

Practice good study habits. One of the best ways to reduce anxiety is to control what you can about the test, and one of the biggest areas you can control is how much time you spend studying. Use your calendar to decide when and for how long you will study each day until the exam. If getting started is a problem for you, set a timer for 15 minutes and make yourself study until the timer goes off.

Know the truth about tests. Tests only measure what you know about a particular topic on a particular day. If you are meant to go into a specific career, don't let one bad test score hold you back from what you are meant to become. Often we put far too much emphasis on testing, and those of us with test anxiety begin to think that our performance on a test reflects who we are inside. You are a valuable, worthwhile person with much to contribute in our world, regardless of whether you do well on the next test.

Work with test anxiety. Trying to talk yourself out of test anxiety will only make it worse. When test anxiety happens, welcome it as a sign that your body is ready to focus. Decide to work with the anxiety, not against it. Even this small change in your thinking can make a huge difference in your ability to manage the symptoms. In addition to working with the symptoms of anxiety, you should also begin to think of the test anxiety itself as a form of alarm system. It may be your body's way of telling you to deal with some issues you haven't yet confronted.

Confront your issues. Test anxiety is often rooted in perfectionism, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, negative self-talk, and previous bad experiences. Spend some time in reflection to locate the root of your anxiety. If test anxiety persists, you may want to seek out a trusted counselor, minister, or advisor to help you wade through some of the personal issues involved..

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