How to Avoid SAT Test Anxiety

Standardized tests like the SAT have become a rite of passage for young adults going into college and graduate school, but they can also continue all through your working life.

The rigid, impersonal, pressured environment these tests create can exacerbate existing anxiety, and may even put the most stable individuals on a knife edge.

According to these government statistics, 30 percent of Americans and 12 percent of Canadians and are affected by test anxiety, and research suggests that if left uncontrolled it can decrease student performance by at least 10 percent.

Test Anxiety Is Not What You Think

To learn more, I spoke with psychology and behavior consultant Bill Cole, who gave this helpful example to explain what’s really going on with test anxiety:

“Let's say three of us are walking down the street. We turn the corner and we're confronted by two mean-looking, large dogs, baring their teeth and growling. And they're coming right toward us. I don't know about you, but I'd be up a tree or on a car roof in no time flat.

Maybe you'd be with me. But amazingly, we see our third friend simply standing still, and begin commanding the dogs to back off and to behave. And the dogs actually DO behave. Unknown to us, our brave friend is a dog trainer who knows exactly what to do in a situation such as this.”

Stress, in other words, is not an external phenomena, waiting to attack us—it comes from within. Stress isn’t the snarling dog, it’s our reaction to the snarling dog.

The amount of stress we feel, Bill says, is self-generated, and is not a simple cause-effect relationship. In this example, the dog trainer feels no stress because he had proper training. He had a plan worked out in advance, had lots of experiences around dogs, and he knew what to expect. To him, it was just another day at the office.

Tips for Avoiding Test Anxiety

The story about the dogs demonstrates how preparation and familiarity leads to confidence, which can then prevent a stress reaction from occurring. 

Here are Bill’s recommendations for preparing to take a test:

1. Study hard and study correctly. Give yourself plenty of time—do not cram.

2. Make sure you know the test material well and can answer questions about it in the format the actual test will be in.

3. Set up practice testing conditions as close to the real conditions as you can.

4. Strive to score better than the practice test’s minimum passing grade. If you barely pass your practice exams, your chances of managing stress during the real exam will be quite low. The better you do in your practice tests, the less stress you'll feel in the real thing.

Real-Life Example

Heather, a postgraduate student who received counseling for anxiety, shared her experience taking standardized tests at Bristol University.

She spoke of feeling a “lack of control”, and “not-knowing if you are prepared enough.” Then, afterwards, she felt a daunting sense of finality, of not being able to make any more changes.

To deal with this, Heather said she ritualized the pre-exam process to create an internal environment that allowed her to thrive at crunch time. This included arriving at the test center 2 hours in advance, and then, instead of cramming last minute, chatting with classmates to lighten the mood.

Preparation was critical for Heather, and not just in terms of studying. She said that she maintained a good psychological state by watching something lighthearted the night before, eating a good meal, going to bed early, and eating a healthy breakfast the morning of the test.

Then, when she was finally at the desk, she felt a sense of calmness before the adrenaline kicked in and she started to write.

Of course, since anxiety affects people differently, others have reported having the opposite problem to Heather. Carolyn told Bevoya that the difficult part of standardized testing was not the fear of not knowing the answers, as that was something she could study. For her, anxiety typically stemmed from “anything more ambiguous or subjective”, like fearing there could be a section of the test she hadn't known about, or that she wouldn’t have enough time to finish

Takeaways

In addition to the tips that behavior consultant Bill Cole gave for avoiding test-taking anxiety, he also has some helpful ones for dealing with any situation that may cause you stress:

1. Pride yourself on handling higher and higher levels of stress. Call it grit, resilience or hardiness, but to deal with the higher pressures that bring higher rewards in life, you must learn to take stress in stride, and even to thrive on it.

2. Reframe stressful situations as challenging situations; learn that it's a choice how you view things.

3. Realize that while we often have little control over what happens in life, we have a lot of control over how we respond to what happens to us.

4. Create a strategy for how to respond to stress ahead of time, don’t merely react to it. Reacting is a knee-jerk, automatic, unthinking way of relating to events. Having a prepared response puts a pause between the stress trigger and your behavior, which allows you to take a deep breath, view the situation with care, and devise a strategy for dealing with it more effectively.

How to Find the Right Job If You Have Anxiety

Turning on lights involves detective work, internal and external.

Finding a "healthy" level of stress can be a challenge.

The workplace can often seem like a minefield of stressful situations. But for those with anxiety, there are certain roles or work environments that can be particularly problematic. Knowing which jobs or atmospheres are likely to trigger or worsen anxiety can help you avoid a workplace that could end up being toxic.

Roles That Could Spell Disaster

Certain jobs or job duties are especially anxiety-inducing—and you probably won’t be surprised at some of the biggest culprits. Roles that involve dealing with the public or juggling multiple tasks in a fast-paced setting are inherently stressful, and could prove mentally and physically grueling for those with anxiety.

Carole Lieberman, M.D., psychiatrist and author of Lions and Tigers and Terrorists, Oh My! How to Protect Your Child in a Time of Terror, cites some examples of jobs and workplaces that could be challenging for those with anxiety:

• jobs with tight deadlines, like daily newspapers.
• jobs where people’s lives are at stake, like surgeons or nurses.
• jobs in places that were sites of past terror attacks, like the offices where the Twin Towers once stood.
• noisy environments, from jobs at or near airports to subway conductors.
• mental health professionals treating people with serious, confrontational or hard-to-cure problems.

On the other hand, there are roles and workplaces that could be soothing, and help establish a calm setting. These might include:

• jobs that involve working with nature, like forest rangers or beach sanitation.
• jobs that are located in nature, like an office overlooking a lake.
•  jobs with low time constraints, like artists or sculptors
•  jobs in a very friendly supportive environment which fosters creativity.

How the Boss Fits In

Susan Kuczmarski is the co-author (with her husband, Tom Kuczmarski) of the leadership book Lifting People Up: The Power of Recognition, to be published in May 2018. She says there is one critical element of a workplace setting that can make all the difference for a worker with anxiety: the boss. “The boss should be a person who nurtures lots of leaders, shares leadership, promotes continuous learning, encourages employees to perform at their maximum potential, nurtures personal development and expansion, and promotes open dialogue. Stay away from a control and compete type boss.”

Certain personality traits will make a manager more likely to support and motivate an employee, including those with anxiety. “Of critical importance is the ability of the boss to listen, include, free, trust, use rewards, and praise. Leaders who are best with high anxiety employees use praise to generate personal growth, understand that a culture of praise is essential, mentors managers on how to give praise, knows that praise is the fuel that fires-up the team, and finally, praise for curiosity and moving forward. Bottom line: praise makes people feel valued. Accordingly, stress is reduced.”  

Spotting Your Own Triggers

For any employee (whether they have anxiety or not) assessing your individual skills and challenges, and then zeroing in on jobs that align with your strengths while causing minimal stress, is a smart approach to identify a role in which you will shine. Serena Houston, MA, LPC, of the Wellington Counseling Group in the Chicago area, advises people to do an honest self-assessment, keeping past triggers and common stressors in mind.

“Pull from your past experiences at work as well as in your everyday life. Identify what has triggered you in the past, and consider whether those triggers will likely occur in the prospective job/workplace.” Taking stock of your own habits and preferences can help you spot any potential red flags. “Consider what you don't like, what has triggered stress/anxiety in the past, and personal areas for growth. Working in an environment where these variables are prominent will more than likely induce a lot of anxiety.”

Investigating the Workplace Culture

Hiring managers aren’t necessarily always forthcoming about the most challenging or demanding aspects of the job, so you may have to read between the lines or do some detective work. “During interviews, ask questions about work dynamics and/or culture,” Houston suggests. “Try to observe the environment as well as inquire with other employees; if you are given the opportunity to do so. Pay attention to keywords provided. For example, ‘fast-paced’ could be a warning sign.” She also recommends being attuned to nonverbal clues. “Pay attention to body language. Those who appear friendly, happy, and/or excited are much more likely to enjoy their job than the person who appears cold, short, or annoyed.”

A Real-Life Example

Kelly Clay has been living with anxiety for years. “At 32, I’ve been struggling with bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder since high school.” She has also followed an interesting and wide-ranging career path, involving many different roles. “I’ve worked nearly every top of job imaginable: fast food, retail, a 9-to-5 office, freelance writing—which has taken me all around the world and to hundreds of conferences—and most recently, the front desk of a hotel. Some of these jobs have been more suited to my unstable emotions, and others an inherent trigger.”

By carefully observing how different roles affect her mental state, Clay has been able to identify some trends. “I’ve realized that jobs that lack structure—the retail and hospitality industries, especially—are more prone to cause panic attacks and create stress that affects my body in ways such as insomnia, increased depression, and even things like intense heartburn to the point I’ve projectile vomited my own acidic saliva,” she says. “I thrive on a calm atmosphere, a solid team, and a supportive manager who has my back—no matter who makes the mistake, if the phone doesn’t get answered, or if I’m going to be late because my medications make me groggy and I need to hit snooze one extra time.”

For Clay, a flexible situation that can accommodate her needs on a given day is key. “I’ve embraced my life as a freelance writer because I can work on my own schedule,” she says. “If I’m not doing so hot, maybe I’ll just focus on answering emails and send out pitches, or enjoy the sunny weather and dedicate the day to my mental health. Sometimes this means I have to write my heart out until midnight on a Saturday - but that’s the kind of life that makes sense for the swings my emotions and motivation go through day-to-day. I’ve been able to sustain it for nearly a decade, except for the few months I yearned for benefits and PTO. In hindsight of those days behind a hotel desk, the control over my day—and how my emotions can dictate it—is far more important than any fringe benefits. The stress, the chaos, and the negative impact on my health are not worth it.”

Have you worked in a place that exacerbated your anxiety? What helped? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

How to Deal with an Anxious Boss

Anxiety is not fun for anyone.

There’s something about the workplace that seems to make even the most relaxed people tense. Dealing with your own anxiety or that of a co-worker can be challenging enough, but when it’s the boss who has anxiety, this tends to affect everyone in the office. Worse, it can create a vicious circle: an anxious boss stresses out employees—which in turn increases the boss’ anxiety, and on it goes. What’s the best way to keep everyone calm, and establish a positive and productive work environment?

Expert Insight

There are indeed certain conditions inherent in many workplace atmospheres that tend to provoke anxiety—and this can be more prevalent the higher up the corporate ladder you go. “People in leadership positions, especially those who own their own companies, can be at greater risk for mental health and medical issues given the complexity and responsibility of all they have to juggle,” says Lubna Somjee, Ph.D., Clinical/Health Psychologist and Executive Coach. “Those in leadership have to be careful to manage their own anxiety, or other distressing emotions. Otherwise, these become contagious, resulting in low morale and productivity amongst employees.”

Anxiety as a General Concept

The term “anxiety” is often used as a general way to refer to behaviors that show signs of stress. “Anxiety is a physiological experience,” says Katie Playfair, LPC, CSP, counselor and workplace behaviorist at Playfair Consulting. “It's about that feeling of impending doom, where your body is preparing for something bad to happen. Worry and planning are common cognitive responses to anxiety. Stress or stressors are things happening in the outside world that put pressure on our system (physical, psychological, and social). Bosses can become anxious like anyone else for a variety of reasons. They may have a bio-temperamental predisposition to feel anxious or a cognitive habit of worry and planning that exacerbates anxiety.”

Whether the official diagnosis is actual anxiety (in the clinical sense) or just stress-induced panic and worry, the end result for employees can be the same: everyone is tense and on edge, and probably not performing at their best. The work of the team overall is likely to suffer, which in turn will just cause more stress.

How Stress Factors into the Equation

It’s no surprise to learn that stress is often to blame for anxiety at work. “Anxiety disorders such as panic attacks, phobias, social anxiety, excessive worry, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, like diabetes, cardiac conditions and migraines, while not caused by stress, are highly stress sensitive,” said Dr. Sally Winston, Clinical Psychologist and Co-Director of the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Institute of Maryland. “This means that workplace stress can easily make things worse in both bosses and employees prone to anxiety. Long hours can lead to poor sleep, decreased exercise and haphazard eating habits. Too much screen time and not enough people time can be unhealthy. All these are risk factors for increased anxiety.”

Bosses and Anxiety

Are bosses more prone to anxiety? Not necessarily, although it depends on who you ask. Research conducted by the American Institute of Stress seems to indicate that work can be stressful for everyone—at every level of the company hierarchy. In one AIS study, 80% of workers said they feel stress on the job, and nearly half said they need help in learning how to manage stress. When things aren’t going well, though, it’s often the boss who feels the most heat. “Like all of us, bosses are hounded with external pressures, overwhelmed with information overload, asked to deliver more with less, work longer hours, and have less personal time for renewal activities,” says Antoinette Klatzky of Eileen Fisher LifeWork and Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute. “But what happens when company profits fall or something doesn’t please shareholders? The bosses must take the blame and they are often the first to be fired.”  

How Employees Can Help

For employees lower on the food chain, their feeling of a perceived lack of power can often contribute to workplace stress. Yet ironically, they actually have quite a bit of power when it comes to causing—or alleviating—anxiety for their boss. “It's important to put yourself in their shoes when you are working with a boss like this, and recognize your boss is likely having to juggle multiple demands from potentially multiple directions,” said Somjee. “If you are able to understand what contributes to your boss’ anxiety, you might be able to help quell some of it, whether that's by having the team double check something, helping to make sure soft and hard deadlines are being met, or keeping them in the loop on certain things.”

Minimizing Your Boss’ Anxiety

There are some basic, obvious things you can do to help avoid causing additional stress for your boss. “Not getting your work done on time is sure to increase any boss’ anxiety,” notes Klatzky. “Arriving late to work, taking long lunch hours and breaks - all these behaviors are sure to cause a boss to worry that you aren’t dependable. And if you aren’t dependable, the boss will come under attack from those above him or her.” So being a reliable, dependable employee who doesn’t cause your boss undue headaches can significantly reduce office anxiety Bottom line: the things that make you shine as a star employee will also help lower your manager’s stress level.

Staying Positive—and Productive

Anxiety and stress can be contagious, so it’s important to try and protect your own mental health when things get tense in the office. “The number one rule — remain calm,” said Klatzky “Here at Eileen Fisher LifeWork, every meeting begins with a minute of silence so we can shift into a relaxed state. Most of us have studied mindfulness and practice regularly. It works. Mindfulness is the ability to intentionally pay attention to the present moment without judgment. In other words, it is the art of cultivating the ability to be in control of our own minds instead of our minds being in control of us. When we face an anxious boss, mindfulness training helps us to not react in the moment. Instead, we pause and consider our options. If the anxious boss is asking us to do something that we can’t do, we would initiate a conversation about another possible solution. Offering another solution to a demand and inviting dialogue, usually diffuses the other person’s anxiety.”

Anxiety can have individual effects in each person, so it’s important to try different approaches to see what works best for you. Anxiety and Depression Association of America recommends a multi-faceted approach for treating anxiety, both in and out of the workplace. Among the most effective treatments are therapy, medication, alternative/holistic treatments, and meditation.

Real-Life Example

Playfair offers this anecdote from her own experience as a case study about how anxiety impacts the workplace:

Early in my career, I worked for a boss, whom we'll call "Bob." I came to work for Bob as an internal transfer and everyone warned me that Bob did not like anyone he did not hire directly. I was convinced that if I worked hard to impress Bob and build a relationship with him, that I would be the first person he didn't hire that he got to like. I focused on the content of my job, yet at each check-in, Bob gave me poor feedback. So I tried harder and did the things he asked me to do. Still, he gave me bad feedback. I worked harder on the content of what Bob was asking me to do and the feedback just got worse. I left, never really knowing what happened. I later learned that Bob distrusted people he didn't hire and those who had relationships across the larger organization, especially with the executive team. I imagine given my previous role in the organization, I might have been a stressor. 

I did not have the experience nor the skills at that point in my career to ask Bob about what was really going on. Many years later, I would want to say to him, "I have really excelled in this company for the last several years I've been on the staff. I notice that my feedback suddenly worsened when I arrived here in your office. I keep trying to incorporate the feedback you've given me to make changes but I can't figure out what I'm missing. I find myself wondering what's going on and how our messages are getting crossed in weekly in-person meetings. What do you think about this?" I now know how to formulate questions that could have helped me understand Bob's world and that would have forced him to examine the fact that ultimately, he was sabotaging me and "forcing me out." I simply did not have the skills nor the tolerance of discomfort in conversations to effectively engage in that type of discussion at that time. 

Have you ever had an anxious boss? Were you able to find productive ways to communicate? Share what you learned in the comments so that others can try your techniques.