ANXIETY, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM AND HOW DO I GET IT?
YOU TRY IT--Causes of Your Anxiety
| Have you ever had any of these types of reactions? | "I felt I was ready for the test, but when it started my mind just went blank." |
| "Before the test started I felt sick. I just wanted to get out of there." | |
| "I kept thinking to myself what would happen if I did poorly on this test, I just knew it would be awful because I was going to fail again." | |
| "I thought I did just fine, but when the grade came back it was a 'D', I don't know what happened." | |
| "I am always feeling under pressure, my life is just too hectic." |
Anxiety is a very complex human reaction that has both physical and mental elements to it. The physical elements include things such as sweaty palms, accelerated heartbeat, and a queasy stomach. The mental elements include self-doubts and constant worry about things. To control your test anxiety you will need to deal with both of these elements, taking a pill to relax more or "concentrating harder" probably will not solve the problem.
Anxiety reactions can be very powerful and to understand
that intensity we can look at our body's natural arousal systems. If we
are presented with a real situation that is threatening, we respond with
fear and our bodies are aroused. This fear is very natural and protects
us from harm; we would not survive long as a species without this responsiveness.
Within our autonomic nervous system we have two divisions, the sympathetic
division which helps arouse us and the parasympatheic
division that helps with the calming process. Both of these
are necessary and complementary. The sympathetic gets us going and protects
us during those threatening situations, the parasympathetic calms us down
so that we can rest and recuperate from the sympathetic arousal. The following
are the specific reactions of each of the systems:
| Sympathetic. (The part that gets us "pumped up") | Parasympatheic. (the part that calms you down) |
| Our heart starts to beat rapidly, and the blood pressure goes up. | Breathing is slowed down. |
| The blood goes to our muscles and less to the thinking part of our brain (which is why we go blank when nervous). | Digestive processes increase. |
| Digestion is slowed down. | Heart rate slows down and blood pressure decreases. |
| Breathing rate increases. | Perspiration returns to normal. |
| Blood sugar is released to give us energy (also depleting energy reserves). | |
| The rate of perspiration increases (you sweat!). | |
| Adrenalin is released in the body giving an overall excited effect. |
There is a myth that all anxiety is bad, but a little bit of sympathetic arousal might be good for times when you have to take a test because it will get you "up" for the test and make you more alert. However, too much of this type of reaction will make it hard to concentrate. One explanation is that all the body's energy is being focused into the large muscle groups and the brain-stem (which controls the automatic functions of your body), and not enough blood is being brought to the cerebral cortex which is responsible for thinking. This explains why you go "blank" when you are real nervous, then everything comes back to you when you relax later.
During anxiety reactions we start breathing more rapidly, and that breathing tends to be upper chest breathing rather than from the diaphragm. If you are jogging this type of breathing is great, but if you are sitting at a desk taking a test, you will start to hyperventilate. When you hyperventilate you increase the proportion of oxygen in your blood and reduce the proportion of carbon dioxide. You start feeling light headed and can't think as straight.
(Try it right now. While sitting in a chair start to breathe rapid and shallow. Do this for thirty seconds and notice how you feel.)
You can control this tendency by concentrating on breathing while extending your diaphragm, or "belly breathing."
While in an aroused state your body is calling for more energy. This energy comes in the form of blood sugar, the fuel for our cells. We obtain the blood sugar through the digestion of the foods we eat. If we stay in an aroused state for a considerable period of time, it substantially reduces our reserves and we have to "re-fuel." In a later unit we will look at the need for a proper diet to support the stresses of school.
Anxiety is a fear-like arousal, when the situation really isn't that threatening. Granted, a test can be threatening to your grade point average, but it is not a physical threat and doesn't warrant a full-blown physical reaction.
Our mental, or cognitive, reactions are harder to measure
than the physical ones. But, never-the-less they do contribute to anxiety
reactions. Have you ever noticed that two people in the same situation
will react in entirely different ways. An instructor gives an assignment
in class, and some students just nod and smile as if they enjoyed the experience.
Other students cringe and look like they are ready to cry. Attitudes and
beliefs help determine how we react. One way we look at these attitudes
and beliefs is through what is called, self-talk. Self-talk is literally
what we say to ourselves. Going back to the teacher giving the assignment,
some of the following are the self-statements that students may be making:
 |
"Boy that assignment sounds like fun, I will learn something new." |
| "Give me a break, he knows we won't have time to do all that." | |
| "Same old stupid assignment." | |
| "That is my worst area, what will I do? I'm sure I can't get that done." | |
| "Well, I guess that is what I expected." |
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Where did you get the test anxiety? Like most human behaviors
you learned it. How you learned it is a more
complex question. The following might be some of the starting points in
the early development of test anxiety:
| Possible Starting Points for Test Anxiety | Members of your family may have made a big deal about an upcoming tests. You interpret this interest as pressure to succeed. |
| You really "blew it" on a test one time and a great deal of attention was brought to it by teachers or parents. | |
| You took a test one time when you were sick or being influenced by a great deal of family stress. |
The previous situations will not cause you to be test anxious, it may simply be the starting point. If the feelings are continually reinforced then it may begin to develop into test anxiety over time. The following areas are often specific sources of test anxiety that are experienced by high school and college students:
Unfamiliarity.
New situations are scary. Remember the way it felt the first day you walked into this school: "Will I know anyone? Will I do okay? Can I find my classrooms without looking like a fool?" It is natural to feel a little nervous the first time you encounter a new situation. Your first test with a particular instructor is likely to raise your anxiety level. Once we have had some experience with the new situation, then we relax a little more. Having a "dress rehearsal" is one of the main strategies used to counteract this problem. While it is impossible to totally anticipate a new testing situation, taking practice tests and learning test-taking strategies is one of the ways it is done.
Preparation.
Students who have not learned the material that is included on a test will not do well. Or stated more directly, if you haven't studied sufficiently, you deserve to be nervous. One method to control test anxiety is to spend more than adequate time studying material and to study in an effective manner so that you feel comfortable with your ability to recall important facts and concepts.
General Lifestyle.
Having a lot of stress in our lives will not necessarily cause us to have test anxiety, but it certainly does increase the likelihood that we will have problems. Many test anxious students also have significant things causing stress in their lives. How we take care of our bodies in terms of diet and exercise influence our ability to cope with stressful situations. One way of helping our school performance is to examine and modify life stressors, and to practice healthy maintenance of our bodies.
Conditioned Anxiety.
Sometimes when we get in a testing situation there is an automatic chain reaction in our minds and bodies that results in an anxiety reaction. We hear "test" and we start to sweat. This is an indicator of a learned behavior. We have learned that when we are taking a test, we should be uptight. Sometimes a single, traumatic event, (like being ridiculed in math class by a teacher) can result in an apparent permanent anxiety reaction every time you deal with similar material. More common is a gradual reinforcement of the anxiety over time by continually doing poorly on tests. A type of relaxation training is used to control this automatic reaction and teach the body to stay more physically relaxed.
Irrational Thinking.
At times our thought patterns set up unrealistic goals for ourselves, or we are always convincing ourselves that something awful will happen if we don't do well on a particular tests. We keep saying negative things to ourselves that aren't necessarily based on the facts. To control this type of thinking we can practice "positive self-talk" which serves to block the irrational negative talk.
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1. Practice relaxation tape by using tracks 1 & 2 on the CD, doing the deep muscle one first (track 2). Then try the shorter, deep breathing one (track 1). Record your reactions on the Test Anxiety Relaxation Log Sheet. The Log Sheet is found in the Forms/Surveys Page.
If you did not receive the recordings from Dr. Ross as part of a class meeting, you can download them at: http://clcpages.clcillinois.edu/home/cou052/Recordings.htm. For this exercise you should download the DEEP BREATHING, AND THE DEEP MUSCLE recordings.
2. Complete the "School Anxiety Self Assessment" found on Forms/Surveys Page.