How to End Exam Anxiety (eBook)

The Ultimate Approach for Parents, Teachers, & Students

Fran Burke (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
10-10-10 Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-77277-091-9 (ISBN)

Fran Burke, M.Ed. has developed a system to do away with Exam Anxiety of all kinds. Whether you tend to blank out when faced with a particularly tough exam or you simply suffer from butterflies, Fran's program can give you proven tools to put an end to your worries. First she teaches you about the various kinds of Exam Anxiety, then Fran explains how to identify them by the symptoms you feel. Are you alone in your situation? Definitely not. The problem is that parents and teachers have not been taught what to look for or what to do for students in your situation. This book will give you the tools to take matters into your own hands, putting your worries to rest once and for all. Short-term strategies will be presented so that you can start feeling better right away - even during an exam! Longer term solutions will follow, giving you power over stress in a global way, in a way that will allow you to care for yourself in a comprehensive manner. This is powerful stuff, and you'll be glad you invested the time to learn How To End Exam Anxiety.

PREFACE

When I talk about exam anxiety, I use it to include test anxiety, also. From the reading I have done and the discussions I have had, exam anxiety still flies under the radar for the majority of students, their caregivers and teachers. Now, as no time before, there are effective strategies that can be effectively practiced with amazing results. Since it appears that exam anxiety does not distinguish itself with any one particular group, and since it can afflict students with different degrees of intensity and frequency, this book is for students of all abilities and ages, their caregivers and teachers. As well, because exam anxiety is experienced by most students, I see it as a normal human response to a stressful situation rather than a pathology. This is meant to be a preventive self-help guide.

Within these pages, the “you” I am speaking to can be a senior high school, college or university student. If you are a parent or teacher looking for strategies to help the younger children/students in your care overcome exam anxiety, this book is for you, too. You will just need to change the perspective of “you” as student, to that of caregiver. Both the short-term and long-term strategies discussed in the following pages can be used with students at any age, with some adjustments needing to be made to suit the student’s age and maturity.

However, please be aware that there are times when you need the help of a professional and this book is simply not enough. That time is when your anxiety is affecting other parts of your life and the techniques discussed in this book do not work to create the confidence you are striving to achieve when you face exams and other stresses in your life. A psychologist or other mental health professional can help you work through feelings, thoughts and behaviors that cause or worsen the anxiety. Ask if your school has counseling services.

I have planned out this book so that, yes, you can find out the basics of what exam anxiety is. By doing so, you will be able to recognize whether you experience it or not. Also, I show how exam anxiety has both a mental and physical component. You will learn both short-term and long-term strategies to help you reduce or eliminate exam anxiety.

I have included the short-term strategies so that you can manage your anxiety as it arises in anticipation of an exam, whether it is a day, a week or a month in advance. Of course, these strategies are also meant to be used on the day of and/or during an exam to bring calm to your mind so that you are able to take the exam with confidence. You can also use these strategies for the stress you experience after the exam, too. You will learn that some of the best short-term strategies (two of which are discussed in the following pages) for reducing the mental and physical aspects of exam anxiety also have mental and physical components to them, and this is what makes them effective. Hopefully, these will become less necessary as you develop and work from a “growth mindset” and use the other long-term strategies discussed in Unit Three of this book.

The long-term strategies I have included are equally as important to reducing exam anxiety. The first one discussed is that of the “growth mindset” identified by Dr. Carol Dweck1. Amongst other things it is a way to identify a key belief that you have about yourself as a learner and which affects your thoughts and behaviors as they relate to how you learn and, as part of that, how you approach exams. This mindset is fundamental to how you approach the other long-term strategies included in the pages that follow. These particular strategies include goal seting, study skills, learning methods and self-care. In all, the beter you get at incorporating them into your life the more they can support your success. As you practice them, as you become more aware of how to develop a mindset that is working in your favor, these skills become easier and will support your overall success. Be sure to take them one step at a time to prevent overwhelm.

I have also included information about brain function and how it factors into the discussion of exam anxiety. With the advancement of neuroscience in the understanding of how the brain works, there is much more information available about what happens in the brain when you are under stress. You will learn that stress causes an involuntary reaction in the brain-body system; that is, a reaction that happens outside your control. It is called the survival response. This same involuntary reaction or reflex happens when you experience exam anxiety. As it states, this reflex action is involuntary and outside your initial control. So, the question is, how can you counter this involuntary reflex? You do so by using voluntary action or actions and thought or thoughts to help bring you out of survival mode into a state in which you feel calm and in charge again. The strategies in this book help you to do just that.

Until recently, learning has been considered something that happens only in the head, and therefore emotions and the body have never really been considered important to the process of learning. This being the case, discussion with students about how natural it is for people to feel anxious at exam time can easily be overlooked by teachers and parents. Yet, its impact on your ability to do well can be enormous. In this current day and age, with a greater understanding of the power of thought and intention and with the advent of Brain Gym® and Energy Psychology, there is a greater understanding of how our thoughts impact our physiology and how techniques can be used to calm the body and bring it out of this survival reflex.

As well, talk about neuroscience and the body-brain connection and how much the integration of the two positively influences learning is new, and certainly not something that has yet been included in most teachers’ trainings. One has only to consider Brain Gym®, the creation of Paul and Gail Dennison, to appreciate the important role movement with intention can play in the learning process. Or the work of Dr. Carla Hannaford, neuroscientist, educator and author of The Dominance Factor: How Knowing Your Dominant Eye, Ear, Brain, Hand & Foot Can Improve Your Learning2 in which she offers a new insight into the linkages between the side of the body we favor for seeing, hearing, touching and moving and the way we think, learn, work, play and relate to others. Her work gives you a deep appreciation for the role the body plays in how well or poorly you learn in the traditional classroom. Lastly, an understanding of Energy Psychology and Emotional Freedom Techniques will help you to appreciate the profound affect your thoughts can have on you both mentally and physically.

With the advent of Brain Gym® and Energy Psychology, there are self-help strategies to address exam anxiety like never before. These systems can be used to counter involuntary reaction (fight/flight/freeze) with voluntary action and thought to bring about positive change. The strategies being offered in this book come from both of these two programs and provide these voluntary actions and thoughts to achieve the calm and confident state so desired at exam time.

So, what if you are one of a majority of students who experiences some degree of exam anxiety that does not serve you well? What if your experience is a lot more common than you think? What if this anxiety exists, but not at the level to make it a diagnosable condition? To me, what maters is that while some students are identified and get special support during exams, the majority of students do not. It is taken for granted that you will do okay. Yet, in my opinion, there are reasons to be concerned: 1.) If you do experience a heightened degree of exam anxiety and are not identified as requiring supports, then you will more than likely perform less than optimally on the exam. If this happens often enough, your future prospects can be threatened. 2.) If you experience exam anxiety often enough and do not have the tools with which to deal with it, anxiety can become neurologically hardwired into your system as a paterned response or habit when faced with a challenge of any kind. This can potentially impact your self-esteem and physical health into the future. How wonderful to have tools at an early age with which to manage anxiety and stress when it arises. It is certainly beter than experiencing the mental and physical impact that ignoring or suppressing it can have on you. 3.) If you experience exam anxiety and your parents know it but do not have the tools with which to counter it, then your parents can be affected, perhaps worrying about you and feeling helpless. 4.) If teachers and schools are judged according to the success of their students and exam anxiety impacts that success, then looking at exam anxiety may be something to consider more seriously. 5.) If you experience exam anxiety, what can teachers do to mitigate against this and support you at exam time so that you can truly shine?

While the discussion in this book is about exam stress, you need to recognize that other factors taking place in your life can be affecting you, too. You may be dealing with family issues, social pressures, health issues, global concerns and/or financial maters. It is important to be aware of how these aspects of your life are supporting or not supporting your academic success and to seek out the help you need.

Here is an opportunity for you to learn about the negative impact stress might have on you at exam time and also an understanding of...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	16.8.2016
Vorwort	Raymond Aaron
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
ISBN-10	1-77277-091-4 / 1772770914
ISBN-13	978-1-77277-091-9 / 9781772770919

Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt?

EPUB (Ohne DRM)
Größe: 514 KB

Digital Rights Management: ohne DRM
Dieses eBook enthält kein DRM oder Kopierschutz. Eine Weitergabe an Dritte ist jedoch rechtlich nicht zulässig, weil Sie beim Kauf nur die Rechte an der persönlichen Nutzung erwerben.

Dateiformat: EPUB (Electronic Publication)
EPUB ist ein offener Standard für eBooks und eignet sich besonders zur Darstellung von Belletristik und Sachbüchern. Der Fließtext wird dynamisch an die Display- und Schriftgröße angepasst. Auch für mobile Lesegeräte ist EPUB daher gut geeignet.

Systemvoraussetzungen:
PC/Mac: Mit einem PC oder Mac können Sie dieses eBook lesen. Sie benötigen dafür die kostenlose Software Adobe Digital Editions.
eReader: Dieses eBook kann mit (fast) allen eBook-Readern gelesen werden. Mit dem amazon-Kindle ist es aber nicht kompatibel.
Smartphone/Tablet: Egal ob Apple oder Android, dieses eBook können Sie lesen. Sie benötigen dafür eine kostenlose App.
Geräteliste und zusätzliche Hinweise

Buying eBooks from abroad
For tax law reasons we can sell eBooks just within Germany and Switzerland. Regrettably we cannot fulfill eBook-orders from other countries.