COPING WITH:

How to reduce the mental and physical stress of

test-taking.

Prepared for the ACADEMIC SUPPORT CENTER

by Donald Sanzotta, Professor, Psychology.

INTRODUCTION

Anxiety is fear that you think you’re not supposed to have, but you do, and you cannot seem to convince yourself otherwise. An awful lot of effort goes into trying to deny, control, and cope with anxiety, and it can be exhausting and depressing. Test anxiety is much more common than most people think, and it goes beyond mild nervousness. It is self-defeating and it has both psychological and physical effects. The psychological part is called COGNITIVE, and the physical is called AFFECTIVE.

Cognitively, you worry, you’re concerned about failure, and you cannot seem to stop being preoccupied with what might happen. You even forget things you know you know.

Affectively, you may not sleep well before a test, you may feel sick to your stomach, or feel faint and weak.

Fortunately, there is help, but first it is important to define your GOAL which is to reduce, not totally eliminate test anxiety.

OK, let’s get started. Here are the problems: COGNITIVE TRAPS, and EMOTIONAL HIJACKING.

COGNITIVE TRAPS

1. ALL-OR-NONE THINKING. This is about polarized, and perfectionistic ways of viewing a challenge. It is 100% or 0%, no compromises, no middle ground. It is either perfect or it is worthless. This trap gives you only two extremes, and when you do this, you put enormous pressure on yourself. No wonder you feel anxious about the outcome.

2. CATASTROPHIZING. This involves the worst case of dominos you can imagine. Every time you have a headache, you have a brain tumor and about an hour to live. "If I don’t do well on this test… I will fail the course, be thrown out of college, never have a job, and live in a cardboard box."

3. PERSONALIZATION. This is how self-esteem gets involved. If I have trouble with tests, I am stupid, or at least everyone will think I am. Somehow, test anxiety is not about not doing well on a test, it is about being a defective person.

BREAKING OUT OF COGNITIVE TRAPS

• RECOGNIZING SELF-TALK. Self-talk is just what it says; we all talk to ourselves. (It’s OK as long as we don’t hear other people’s self-talk). The Traps we’ve listed are from self-talk, and they are about negative outcomes, and they scare the heck out of us. So, the first step is to realize when we are doing this and knock it off. It’s called thought stoppage. With practice, you can catch yourself doing this, and freeze right there. You put limits on the runaway cognitive train. Then, do the following:

1. COUNTERING. Argue with yourself to change negative thoughts to more positive and less catastrophic outcomes. For example, "My heart is pounding and I’m not going to think straight. Here I go again." With countering it becomes, "My heart is pounding, but that’s normal before a test; I can use it as an energizer."

2. REFRAMING. This attempts to change your view of things less drastically than countering. It’s about the spin you put on your thoughts and feelings. For example, "I’m feeling tense and nervous." With reframing, "I’m excited and ready."

All of this sounds a bit too simple to be believed, right? Well, it’s harder than just saying it. It takes practice, but you will be enormously reinforced if it relieves your anxiety only a little. This is do-able; we’re not talking rocket science here.

EMOTIONAL HIJACKING

Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, uses this term to describe what happens when our emotional brain takes over our rational brain. The lower and more primitive part of our brain triggers fear as a survival response to a physically dangerous world. It’s like a reflex; no thinking necessary. This might be fine if someone wants to take your money and push you down, but unless you’re about to hurt yourself with your ballpoint pen, it’s not helpful when taking a test.

One of the best ways to overcome the emotional brain is through controlling our emotions. (I told you this wasn’t rocket science). Here are some ideas that work well:

1. CONTROL YOUR BREATHING. Breathing is one of the few things we do that is both involuntary and is able to be voluntarily changed. Most of the time it works by itself, but we can slow it down if we want to think about it enough. Here’s the connection: anxiety = fast, shallow breathing – calm = slow, deep breathing. Regardless of which comes first, one can change the other. By taking slow deep breaths, you tell your body it’s calming down. Trust me, with practice, this works.

2. COUNTING DOWN. Start by counting backward slowly from ten or even twenty. Connect each number to your slowed breathing. You should self-talk each number in a calm and boring way; this suggests relaxation. How can this work? Remember Pavlov and his dog show? The numbers become conditioned stimuli for a conditioned response of relaxation. If you get good at this, you can use a speed technique of counting just before or even during a test.

3. IMAGING. This is a slightly more difficult task for some people, but it is extremely effective. By creating a mental picture, you mobilize both cognitive and affective factors. Relaxation images are of your favorite places to be calm: the beach, the woods, a stream, walking, etc. Success images are of you taking a test calmly and confidently. Goals of all sorts can be imaged with amazing success.

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."

Norman Vincent Peale