Jasmine is on my Zoom screen. She is pulling her hair. As she starts talking, the rate of the pulling increases." My exam is on Friday," she tells me, "What if I get a question I can't answer? What if I don't get a good grade?"
Jasmine is just one of the students suffering from test anxiety. The word "anxiety" originates from Latin, meaning narrowing. The "narrowing" describes what's happening in Jasmine's nervous system. Basically, the sympathetic (交感神经) branch — fight-or-flight ——has switched on, and her muscles have narrowed as if she's preparing to do battle or run away. Commonly known the "rest and digest" branch, the parasympathetic (副交感神经)nervous system plays an important role in thinking and learning by promoting a state of relaxation and calmness. When the parasympathetic nervous system is stirred up, it reduces stress and anxiety, improving focus and concentration.
There are three simple tools for engaging the parasympathetic branch: breathing, grounding, and sensing. Breathing means a steady flow of breath; grounding means feeling the chair and the floor supporting you; and sensing means turning on one or more of the five senses.
In more than 40 years of coaching test-takers, I have observed how often they hold their breath, how nervous and ungrounded they are, and how unaware they are of feeling the touch of clothes on their own bodies. No wonder people are exhausted by the end of a long test! When they use the three calming tools, they create the state necessary for sitting still, thinking, remembering, reasoning, and, finally, answering questions.
We all face countless tests in everyday life. Unexpected, unwanted things happen to everyone. Wouldn't it be a whole lot better if we faced the tests by being calm? In case you're wondering, the answer is "Yes!" But the real question is: Instead of forcing students to progress through endless comparison and competition, why don't we teach them how to stay calm?
