20 Tips for Test Anxiety Relief | Cognitive Behavioral Counseling Tools

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on how to manage and even overcome test anxiety. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this video, we're going to explore what causes test anxiety and 20 strategies for test anxiety relief. So let's start out with what causes it. Well, test anxiety happens for a lot of different reasons. So there's no one size fits all. I know y' all get tired of me saying that. For some people, they develop test anxiety because they put a high priority on grades for their own self esteem. They may have told themselves, I'm a failure if I don't do well on this test. For other people, they may have developed test anxiety because of fear of rejection. They were afraid that it meant that they weren't good enough. They were afraid that their parents would reject them or their friends would reject them if they didn't do well on a test. For others, it could have been because they used catastrophic thinking. They felt a sense of a lack of control. They think, if I fail this test, I'm going to flunk out of school and be broke the rest of my life. Some people expect the worst out of a lot of things. So when it comes to taking tests, it just follows that they're going to expect that they're going to fail and that's going to cause them some anxiety. Other people may have developed test anxiety simply because they've had bad testing experiences. They may have taken bad tests. These are tests that, you know, the questions are there, but you're like, it's not even related to what we studied. You know, did you give us the wrong test? So it could be a bad test, it could be a bad teacher. If you are trying to learn something like calculus and you didn't have a good teacher, it doesn't necessarily mean you can't do calculus. It may mean that that teacher didn't present it in a way that was helpful. So when you took the calculus test, you failed. And so it wasn't that you failed the test, it's just you didn't learn the material because there was a bad teacher. And then for other people, and I'm going to talk about this sort of in depth when we get down there, there are undiagnosed needs that make taking tests more difficult for them than for other people. And finally, timed tests, this is one that bothers me a little bit. It bothers my daughter a lot. It doesn't seem to faze my son. So different people respond differently to timed testing. But for the people that are Bothered by time testing. Just knowing that you only have 20 minutes or an hour to get something done can put a lot of pressure on the person at the beginning, before they even start, because they're like, oh my gosh, I need to make sure that I'm doing so many questions per minute or whatever, that anxiety floods their brain. When the anxiety floods their brain, it actually starts impairing their ability to think clearly. So it slows them down on the test. So there are a lot of different reasons people may develop test anxiety or people may have had bad testing experiences that led them to expect or believe that they can't do well on tests in the future. So let's talk about some ways to address that. First thing, figure out for you when and why did this test anxiety stop? Start now. Some research indicates that test anxiety often peaks in elementary school, which is interesting because remember, elementary school kids think dichotomously. I pass or I fail, I'm good or I'm bad. And they also think globally. Instead of saying I failed the test, they say I'm a failure. So those schema that are formed in elementary school, that surround tests you may be carrying with you into the present and telling yourself the same things. So why did this test anxiety start? Was there family pressure to do well? You were expected to get straight A's or the only way to get recognized in your family was by getting really good grades. Maybe you had to be the one that was the A student in order to get your parents approval. Maybe it was from teacher pressure. And this is one you don't hear about a lot. You know, when you look at the different write ups on the Internet, when you look at different videos. But I worked in school based counseling for several years when I was in community mental health and this was a huge issue. Achievement tests, those tests that they give the kids at the end of every year. A lot of teachers jobs are dependent on how their students score on those tests. Therefore the teachers in turn put a lot of pressure on the students. And even some even go so far as to tell the students, if you guys don't do well, I'm going to lose my job. And that is way too much pressure for students to take. So teacher pressure can give people test anxiety because if they were having, getting ready to go into that test for the, at the end of the, at the end of the year, they had all this stress. So then they had a hard time doing well and then maybe they didn't score as well as they could have. Sometimes you develop test anxiety Just for personal pressure, you want to go to medical school or you want to do something that requires good grades. So you start putting a lot of personal pressure on yourself to be the valedictorian or to get straight A's. Some people started developing their test anxiety because they were taking a course that was just too hard for them. You may have, and I use calculus as an example because that's my Achilles heel. You may have done well in certain classes, and then you were bumped up to this class. That was far harder than what you were ready for. So you struggled to try to understand the material. And then every time you took a test, you didn't do so well. And that could have created a sense of helplessness and test anxiety. Figuring out where your test anxiety comes from is important because you may have to address some of those things and recognize that you're not there anymore. This situation is different. What are you currently telling yourself about the test or any test, and is it based in fact? If you're telling yourself, I'm going to fail or if I don't pass, then I'm going to get kicked out of school and I'm never going to get a job and I'm going to be broke and homeless the rest of my life, you know, that's catastrophic thinking there. So is what you're telling yourself about the test based in fact? Do you know what's going on or are you just worried? Are you assuming is what what you're telling yourself about the test coming from your scared inner child who feared rejection when you were little. So maybe it's this elementary school student that developed test anxiety who's still telling you, oh, I don't think we can do this. I don't want to do this because it's really scary. How can you respond to that inner child looking over other times you have failed a test? I know this one's painful, but looking back over those times that you failed a test or done worse than you should have, what are some similarities? My daddy was a really smart guy, and yes, I'm biased, but he was really smart and he never did well on tests. He struggled throughout high school as well as college on taking tests. He could recite the information just as well as my mother in the classes that they took together. But then when it came to test time, he would do substantially worse. So it's important to recognize that just because you don't do well on a test is not necessarily reflective or indicative of what you do or don't know it. It may Just be something to do with that test. So looking at the times you failed, was it a particular testing method? Maybe you have a hard time with multiple choice or essay or what I call build off tests. We had these when I was taking chemistry in undergraduate. Hated them because there would be 20 questions on the test and every question built off the last one. So you took the first answer to the first question was used in the second equation, and the answer from the second question was used in the third question. So if you made a mistake in any of the questions leading up to that, you ended up failing the whole test. That's a horrible way to structure a test because essentially it's only one question. But I digress. Recognize if there are particular testing methods that you have difficulty with, and if so, go online, see if there are strategies, and I know there are, see what the strategies are that may help you make better decisions when you're taking that kind of test. Timing, as I mentioned before, can really mess with people's heads. And it's important if you're taking a time test, if you recognize that that's one of your stressors, one of the things that causes you anxiety. Developing a strategy that can help you handle or manage the timing to the best of your ability. And that may include practicing. Sometimes once you practice it, you get more comfortable with doing things within a time limit, so that time limit doesn't feel so anxiety provoking. So you may try taking practice tests and timing yourself at the same time. The length of the test could be something else that was similar among the other tests that you failed based on particular needs. If you have ADHD or POTS, for example, a test that's more than 20 or 30 minutes long may become very, very difficult for you to focus on the subject. You know, let's face it, some people do better on particular subjects than others. So if there's a particular subject that you struggle on, it's important to explore if there are tutors or what study methods might be more helpful for that particular subject matter. The study method that you used for some people. I'm a visual learner and a kinesthetic learner. So I learn by reading, by seeing, by highlighting, and by manipulating the information and making it into quizzes. That is how I study best. However, I have friends who are auditory learners and that doesn't work for them. What they read, it kind of goes in one eye and out the other, so to speak. They need to hear it, so they need to record the material. So it's possible you studied really Hard. But you're studying. Your brain did not take that information and move it from short term memory to long term memory because you were studying in a way that didn't work for you. Lack of sleep can also contribute to test failure in the past. And that can be because when you don't get enough quality sleep, not only do you fail to encode all the stuff you studied right before bed, but you also haven't cleared out something called adenosine from your brain. And when you've got that adenosine in your brain, when you wake up in the morning, you, you still feel kind of groggy, kind of sleepy, maybe kind of hungover, hopefully not actually hungover. But that lack of sleep makes it more difficult to think clearly and to do your best on the test. And then last minute cramming. There is only so much you're going to get through last minute cramming. So if you didn't study like I said, I talked earlier about studying in the format that works best for you, but also studying in a meaningful way over time so your brain actually has a chance to encode it. Think of last minute cramming like taking a whole bunch of files and paperwork and stuff that needs to be filed and giving it to somebody at the end of the day and saying see how much of this you can actually get put away before you go home. There's going to be a lot of stuff that's just left out there in limbo land. Same sort of thing for learning. So last minute cramming is not really effective for most people. Not to mention the fact that when people are cramming at the last minute, they're usually over caffeinated, overtired and taking on information when they are in a stressed state, which means their brain is focused on fight or flee, not remember me. So what can you do? Well, we've already talked about identifying the roots of your test anxiety and starting to process that. That's important. I've talked about identifying what was similar between your failure experiences so you can identify some of the things that may make you more vulnerable to failure. That'll help you have a sense of of more control over your studying and test taking experience. If you know where your weaknesses are, you can address them. Now there are some other simple strategies as I mentioned. Get enough good quality sleep. That means no alcohol the night before and get enough quality sleep. It is more important for most people. Now it's not true for everybody, but for most people they will do better on a test if they've had a good minimum six to eight hours of quality sleep the night before, as opposed to four hours of sleep and four hours of studying. So get enough quality sleep. That can be tricky, so look at different suggestions for sleep hygiene in order to help yourself relax enough to get to sleep the night before. Eat a balanced breakfast. If your blood sugar is low or you start out with a sugar rush and your blood sugar is really high and then it bottoms out in the middle of the test, that is going to impact your cognitive abilities. It's going to increase the amount of cortisol and stress chemicals in your body anyway when your blood sugar gets low and then you're going to start feeling anxious and it's going to be harder to compreh concentrate. Don't over caffeinate it can be tempting to caffeinate on your way into your test. However, it's important to recognize that caffeine is a stimulant. Caffeine is going to trigger the release of stress hormones. Therefore, if you are already feeling a little bit anxious, if you over caffeinate, you might actually intensify that anxiety and make it harder to focus. For some people, caffeine helps them focus, so remember that everything works for individuals. You need to figure out what works for you, get diagnosed and identify reasonable accommodations. You can go on askjan.org to identify reasonable accommodations, but a lot of times in order to request those, you need to have an official diagnosis. If you've got adhd, then that can make it harder for you to take tests, especially longer tests or more complex tests that you need to really focus. It may make it more difficult for you to take tests in a room with other people where there's distractions and stimuli that are pulling your attention. So if you've got adhd, get diagnosed and request reasonable accommodations. That is very common. If you've got dyslexia and that can be with letters or numbers, it's important to have that diagnosed because a lot of people with dyslexia go for years or even their entire life without realizing that they've got it, especially if they've got a less intense form of dyslexia and that may impair their ability to take tests. It may for essay tests. If you've got dyslexia and you're writing, then you may be misspelling things and losing points. It's not because you don't know the material, it's because of the dyslexia and POTS or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. This affects one in about every 100 adolescents. Okay, so 1% of people that are in that test taking age, if you will, may be impacted by pots. There are a lot of symptoms of pots and I've got a couple of videos on it on the channel. But the biggest one that relates to test anxiety or two that relates to test anxiety are cognitive decline and tachycardia. When people with POTS sit for too long. When I say too long, I'm talking 15, 20 minutes. For many people, their cognitive functioning starts to decline because their body is not getting the oxygenated blood up to the brain the way it does in a person without pots. The other aspect of POTS that can contribute to or worsen test anxiety is that when somebody gets stressed, it releases stress hormones. And some people with POTS experience even stronger tachycardia or racing heart prior to a test or under stress. So their test anxiety response because of their POTS is amplified. There are reasonable accommodations. Again, like letting, for example, letting people get up and move around so they don't have to sit still still for 20 minutes or after their 20 minutes and they can maintain their cognitive functioning. Again, go to askjan.org but do recognize these are three very different diagnoses, ADHD, dyslexia, and POTS. And three diagnoses that all very much impact people's ability to effectively take tests. If you've had bad experiences taking tests, then you may have anxiety in the future about taking tests unless you know why and have strategies to handle it. The next strategy, breathe. I know that one sounds pretty simple. Hopefully you still are breathing. But practice slow belly breathing. That triggers the vagus nerve, which can trigger the relaxation response, which can help you get into your wise mind, which is where you're going to access all that cognitive stuff. All that stuff you learned is in your wise mind. So breathe. Clear a path so you can get to those memories so you can get to that information. Develop distress tolerant thoughts or a distress tolerance mantra. For me, I remember going in to take my licensure boards and it was a little bit intimidating because I knew that the boards did not have a very good pass rate. And it was one of those things that I studied as much as I could, but there was just so much information. So my distress tolerant mantra was, it is what it is and you've got this. I knew I had studied, I knew I had taken all the practice tests, I knew I had done everything that I knew how to do to study. So at that point there was nothing else I could control and I just had to go in and do my very best. Be mindful. If you start what I call somaticizing, stop and breathe for me when I sit, somaticize. When my anxiety starts to come out in my body, I start shaking my foot or bouncing my leg. And when I notice that I'm starting to do that, I push away from the desk and I take a breath, a deep breath, and I exhale and I hold it. And I usually, like, you know, do something with my neck and I'm like, okay, back at it. Or I got this. And by. By doing those slow, deep breathing and by telling myself I've got this, it's triggering that relaxation response and helping me feel and hear myself tell my. Tell myself that I'm safer and I'm empowered. I can do this. Update your schema. Aside from the fact that you're taking a test, how is this situation similar to and different from prior failures? You've already looked at prior failures and tried to figure out what are some similarities among those things. That way you can address them as much as possible. So this test you're getting ready to take right now, how is it similar to those prior failures? Because the more similar it is, the more anxiety provoking it's going to be. Because somewhere in the back of your head, your schema, your expectation is, ah, here we go again. Recognize. How is this similar to. Why is this particular test triggering this anxiety for me at this time? Well, my brain expects it to go bad. Okay, got it. How is this time different? Did you prepare differently? Did you get better sleep? Are you older and wiser now? You know, there can be a lot of different variables at play now than when you took tests in high school or whenever the last test that you took was reframe the purpose of the test. Instead of being seen as a way to rank or evaluate, you look at it as an opportunity to reward yourself for a job well done. Yeah, that one's kind of hokey, but helps for some people reframe the meaning of failure. So many of us were taught that failure was a bad thing. And the prospect of failure triggers an immense amount of anxiety in a lot of us because we were taught it was a bad thing. In reality, we. Failure teaches us where some of our blind spots are. Failure teaches us where some of our weaknesses are so we can address them. Failure teaches us how not to do it. You know, if you try something and it fails, you're like, well, ain't gonna do it that way again. So failure can be a learning experience. It doesn't have to be seen as something that means that you are a failure or you are bad in some way. Use guided imagery. Envision yourself successfully completing the test. So get into a comfortable, safe place, sit back, close your eyes, and envision yourself walking into the classroom, sitting down, getting the test, looking at it, and going, no, this isn't so bad. Taking the test, handing it in, and then getting it back with a good grade on it. Really envision yourself doing this. If you convince your subconscious that you can do this, if you help your subconscious see that it's possible, it'll help tamp down that anxiety response. Some people use guided imagery and they envision the anxiety implementation. And the anxiety imp is my anxiety imp looks like a little monkey. I don't know what other people's anxiety imp looks like, but the anxiety imp jumps around you when you're trying to do something, and it distracts you and it keeps you from focusing on what you need to do. You don't want the anxiety imp around. So if you can use guided imagery to figure out how to put a leash on that sucker, then it won't be getting on top of your test when you're trying to take it. Rehearsal is another strategy that can be really helpful for test anxiety. If you study in the place where you're going to take that test. So actually get your books and go study in the classroom where you're going to take the test. If you go to the classroom ahead of time, sit down in the classroom and practice just relaxing without the test, without other students, that can also help. So that classroom doesn't serve as a trigger for your anxiety. Likewise, if you study and you practice, take practice tests in that classroom or in that setting, then your brain starts encoding the two successful completion, successful answering, you know, retrieving those memories with that particular environment. Know what you have control over. Too often, and I've been teaching for years now, and too often students don't really ask many questions. And it's important to recognize what you can control. You can ask the teacher, what's the format of the test? You can ask the teacher, can you give us some sample questions? You can ask the teacher, you know, if it's an essay test, what types of things should I aim to have in the. In the answer? Do you have a rubric for me? You have control over all of those things. You can even ask the teacher, can you give us some tips on what we should study closer than others? Other things. And a lot of professors, a lot of teachers want you to succeed. And are going to be willing to give you as much guidance and direction as possible without obviously giving you the test. But you have to ask if you very few professors are going to spoon feed you this information. Identify the actual threats in the current situation. Alright, you're fixing to take a test if it's an end of semester test or if it's a licensure exam, whatever the test is that you're getting ready to take. What are the actual threats in this situation? If you fail the test, is your family going to reject you? Hopefully not. They may be disappointed for you. But are they going to reject you? Are you going to reject yourself if you fail this test? Well, only you can answer that. Are other people going to reject you if you fail this test? In this situation? We're not talking about other tests you've ever taken or tests you may take in the future. Right now, what is your risk of rejection if you fail this test? Is it going to keep you from forever achieving your goals? Most of the time the answer is no. You can take the GRE over again, you can take the ACT over again. You can take a lot of tests over again that may be instrumental to helping you achieve your goals. If you need to pass a particular test in high school, for example, you also may have other options like extra credit. That's another one that I'll get to in a minute. Identify what are the actual consequences in this current situation if I fail this test? Worst case scenario, Actual worst case scenario, you know, telling yourself I'm going to get kicked out of school and be broken, homeless. That's not actual, that's catastrophic Thinking what's actually likely going to happen. Recognize the feeling of anxiety for what it is. It's your brain saying, okay, there's a little bit of unknown here. So we need to really intensify our focus. And your brain is dumping cortisol. Could do without some of that dopamine and norepinephrine. So harness that energy. Instead of being afraid of it and feeling overwhelmed by it. Say okay, give me that. That'll help me focus during my test and embrace the challenge. Relabel that feeling instead of anxiety as excitement. And I know that sounds weird. That's what I did do with like standardized tests. Like the GRE is. I've studied, I've done everything I can. Now let's just see how I can do. Let me harness this and see if I can do better than I even expected. Unhook. Instead of saying I am going to fail or I know I'M going to fail. Say I'm having the feeling that I'm going to fail. I'm having the feeling. So you have this feeling. It's not part of you, it's something that you have and you're holding. Now what are you going to do with this feeling? Are you going to squish it? Are you going to throw it to the universe? Or are you going to hold it right next to your chest and nurture it? That's your choice. A feeling is not a fact. A feeling is something you have that you can choose. It's your body's way of saying, hey, there might be a threat, so you need to figure out what to do. Do I need to give you more energy because there actually is a threat? Or can we turn off the threat response system because there actually is not a threat? What are we going to do with this feeling? I'm having the thought that I'm going to blank as soon as I see the test. That used to be one of my thoughts. Well, if you keep telling yourself that, then you're going to create a self fulfilling prophecy. But like feelings, thoughts are not facts. Thoughts are just anticipation. I'm having the thought that this is going to happen. Well, okay, what can I do in order to prevent that from happening as best as possible? Thought stopping. If you're having these anxious thoughts or these thoughts that tell where you're telling yourself you're going to fail, tell yourself, stop. Envision a big old stop sign right there. Stop. Not gonna do it for me. I usually say stop. And I do this with my hand. Even when I'm in my, in the room by myself, I'm like, talk to the hand. Stop. Not gonna listen right now. Talk back. Now part of that, you have to figure out where those thoughts are coming from. If it's coming from the inner critic that say, you know you're gonna fail, well, tell it to shut up. If it's the inner child that is saying, hey, this is really scary, then you're gonna respond differently and you're gonna say, we've got this and if we fail, it'll suck. But it's likely not the end of the world. It's likely we can, we can recover from this. Sometimes it can be helpful when you have these thoughts that keep popping up. Write them down, put them in a box or an envelope or whatever. Once a day you can go look at that box or envelope, look at what's in it for 30 minutes. Look at what's written down, take what's Useful and leave the rest. So there may be some things in there that are useful, like you forgot to study chapter 13. Okay, well, maybe I'll go back and look at that. But on the other hand, there's probably a lot of stuff in there that's not useful. So you just leave that be, know your options and reframe the consequences for a lot of things, especially these days. They didn't do it as much in my day. I never thought I'd say that, but I do now. A lot of teachers in high school as well as in college will allow you to retake a test or there's extra credit. We always had extra credit. Just because you don't do well on a test doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to fail the class. So it's important to ask, ask the teacher, ask the professor, what are my options here? If you know you've got wicked bad test anxiety, talk with them ahead of time and say, you know, I'm going to take the test, I'm going to study my best, but I just, I really have a hard time getting what's in here out on paper during it. During a test. Are there options so I can salvage my grade if I don't do well? And the professor will tell you whether there are or there aren't. But again, I think almost every time that that's come up there have been options. So you can go into the test knowing that even if you don't do well, you have these other options to salvage and reasonable accommodations. If you do need to have extra credit or reasonable accommodations, maybe you can't take a multiple choice test very well for some reason and you need to do an essay. Okay. Or maybe the teacher will let you write a report on whatever it is the test was on to prove that you know the information. Even if you can't take a test and pass the test effectively. So there are options. Practice hardiness. Remember, hardiness stands for commitment, control and challenge. Commitment. What things are important in your rich and meaningful life? What things you're committed to, your kids, your pets, your friends, your family, your job, your keep going. Okay. All of those things are important in your rich and meaningful life. In what way will if you fail this test, in what way will it negatively impact the majority of those things probably won't. So it's important to recognize how impactful this is actually going to be as well as to recognize what things in your life that are important, you already have, that are going for you, that you can control, that you can nurture and then view this test, this unfortunate thing that you've got to do as a challenge. Like, okay, I can do this, I can view it as a challenge, and if it ends up topsy turvy again, that'll suck. However, it's not going to make my dogs go away. It's not going to make my friends go away. It's not going to make my kids love me any less. Test anxiety can happen for a lot of reasons. Ensure you understand what prevents you from doing your best so you can do what is necessary to do your best. So if you know that you can't sit for long periods of time and maintain focus, that's an important piece of information. And once you recognize that and get a diagnosis so you can get reasonable accommodations, then that is not going to negatively impact you. So the chance that you're going to do well on a test in the future is, is greatly improved. A little bit of anxiety going into a test is normal and it gives you a quick hit of norepinephrine, which is your focus chemical. But left unchecked, it can sabotage you. If you can't harness that norepinephrine and say, okay, thanks, why don't you come over here into the wise mind and help me continue to focus? If it sits there in the stress area and you keep dumping cortisol and glutamate, then it's going to be harder to focus. Not every strategy is going to work for everyone in every situation. But hopefully a few of today's tips will help you feel more empowered before your next test.