Test Anxiety

Test anxiety is a state of heightened anxiousness that arises in a testing situation which triggers the autonomic nervous system which then leads to physiological changes that make one much better suited to fight an attacking bear and much less prepared to remember facts or do complex thinking.  The digestive system almost completely shuts down, causing a very queasy stomach and sometimes nausea.  The distant-senses — vision and hearing — become hypersensitive, causing a person to be distracted by every little sound and movement.  The brain readies the body for take off or battle, causing jitteriness and “ants-in-the-pants” feelings and the last thing a person is prepared to do is take a test.  When this happens, it results in a very poor testing performance which increases the likelihood of test anxiety problems on subsequent tests.Test anxiety is a form of performance anxiety. In test anxiety and performance anxiety, the anxiousness about doing well becomes self-consciousness and self-doubt and causes autonomic nervous system changes that significantly impair memory and mental processing abilities. Test anxiety can also cause study avoidance because the study process is so closely associated with the anxiety-provoking test situation.

Test anxiety can be started by one experience of test failure — or can be caused by just one incidence of being afraid of failing a test.  Anxiety of failing a test that becomes fear of failing tests in general. The fear causes anxiety which causes reduced thinking ability and increased agitation and sensitivity to sounds and sights — which reduces the likelihood of success and increases the likelihood of failure on the test or tests.

With each testing situation that is compromised by anxiety, the “test anxiety” increases, which increases the likelihood of failure on subsequent tests.  Each failure or near failure causes increased anxiety and increased anxiety contributes to future failures.  It’s one of the many vicious cycle -type problems on the menu in life.  Pretty much anyone can develop test anxiety but it is more likely if one struggles with anxiousness in general or very poor self esteem.

MindSet Hypnosis affords access to unconsciously controlled physical and mental functions usually not accessible consciously. Mindset Hypnosis will foster self-confidence, reduced self-consciousness, relaxation, reduced autonomic nervous system reactions and facilitates smooth, comfortable retrieval of information from memory.