What is exam anxiety?
While a certain level of "nerves" can help us perform better, too much anxiety can cause us to underperform. Exam anxiety, also known as test anxiety, can be traumatic for a person. They might experience various physiological symptoms such as sweating, loss of focus or concentration, loss of appetite, dizziness, heart palpitations, upset stomach or sickness, other physical pain or discomfort, or freeze mentally and not be able to recall information or produce meaningful answers. If you have one or more of those symptoms, you might be suffering from exam anxiety.
How anxiety cycles work.
The beginning of exam anxiety varies for each person. It might start with a bad mark, a strong desire to over perform, a snide comment from someone, a bad testing experience, low self-esteem, fear of success, and so on. Regardless of the initiating event, the stress becomes very real for the person. It may grow gradually, as a person starts to experience "exam nerves" or "testing nerves". They begin to associate exams with negative experiences and each time they have to do an exam this feeling becomes stronger. For others, the onset of the exam anxiety may be rapid (one negative event may cause great fear). Either way, slow or fast, the anxiety becomes a cycle that feeds itself. As the feelings get stronger, the more difficulty the person experiences in performing to their maximum, and the dread or fear builds. As a result, the exams become increasingly associated with negative experiences thus growing the negative emotions. If left alone, the anxiety can cause havoc on the person's academic success. Hypnosis can help break this cycle!
Exam anxiety can take various forms throughout our lives.
While this site discusses exam anxiety, this same anxiety can impact us or follow up through our lives. It can manifest itself in various forms:
- job interview anxiety,
- written interview anxiety,
- social anxiety (including dating),
- fear of public speaking, and
- you can insert your own example here.
Of course, it goes without saying that the exam anxiety does not always generalize into other areas of one's life. Regardless which type of anxiety or the source of the anxiety, hypnosis may be able to help.
Other applications for these skills
These same skills are useful for other types of testing throughout one's life, there really is no limit: GREs, GMAT, LSAT, real estate licenses, brokerage tests, and so on.
