Overcoming Test Anxiety

Standardized tests are a fact of life in elementary school, high school, and college, and employment application tests are a fact of life in the job market. Most test-takers feel some anxiety before exams, but for many, tests are serious stumbling blocks. No matter how prepared they are or how hard they study, their minds go blank.Now a simple do-it-yourself acupressure tapping technique called EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) is being used by students and job applicants around the world to reduce and even eliminate test anxiety before and during exams and job interviews. The procedure takes just a few minutes, and its practitioners claim an 80-percent success rate. EFT is fully explained in a free manual that can be downloaded from www.eft-emotionalfreedomtechnique.com Psychologists and counselors who treat students and the public for panic attacks say that test anxiety can have as many symptoms as a physical illness, including headaches, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea, hot flashes, cold sweats, shortness of breath, rapid heart beat, dry mouth, dizziness, and even fainting spells.The most widely used methods for treating test anxiety include preparation, practice, developing good study habits, remembering to eat, sleep, and exercise on a normal schedule, maintaining a positive attitude, and learning relaxation techniques such as deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation.“All of these can make a difference,” says Los Angeles physician Eric Robins, MD, “but when someone feels anxious, his or her sympathetic nervous system is firing off, producing the rapid pulse, sweating, and other symptoms that are associated with test anxiety. I think this shunts blood away from the frontal lobes of the brain, which is where much of our thinking, processing, and test-taking ability comes from. In an exam or interview situation, this is a problem“EFT works by restoring the body’s flow of energy and blood circulation. This brings people back to the physiological state they were in when they learned the material in the first place. The theory of state-dependent learning says that people are able to retrieve information easier if they are in the same state as they were when they learned it. If you were calm and relaxed while studying, it’s difficult to retrieve information when you’re in a state of panic. EFT quickly restores you to the ideal place for state-dependent learning to work.”Even though EFT is a new technique, it has an impressive track record in treating performance anxiety triggered by everything from SAT tests and college boards to athletic performance.Over 300,000 have downloaded the free EFT manual from emofree.com and an additional 10,000 download it every week. The manual has been translated by volunteer practitioners into nine languages.