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.

Handpicked Memes For You, Fellow Overthinker

Memes are evolving. These days, a well-placed gif doesn't just represent a cheap laugh or an easy Facebook like. For many people, memes capture the feelings and frustrations we feel inside that we just can’t quite express in words. The following memes have been created by or for all the overthinkers among us to capture all our many, many thoughts in .gif form.

1. The Overheated Brain

Have you ever felt the pain of the overheated brain? These gifs reveal what it can feel like to be an overthinker. When your brain gets  overloaded with thoughts, it can be feel overwhelming. If you've struggled with overthinking for a long time, or have physical symptoms connected with your overheated brain, it might be a sign of General Anxiety Disorder. Learn more about GAD here.

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2. The Outside Doesn't Match the Inside

You've probably seen this meme before. Who is this legendary little boy who feels he's drowning in one foot of water? The meme is recirculated regularly on social media who reappears periodically because it taps into a deep truth: overthinking makes us crazy about things that aren't actually scary.

I have an overthinking metaphor that I return to when I need to remember the power of perception. I visualize my brain's environment, knowing that I am the one person responsible for keeping that environment safe and calm.

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3. Panic Before Planning

This gif embodies a common problem for overthinkers: We panic before we even taking the time to assess the severity of the problem. Feeling as though we're in trouble really isn't the same as being in trouble.

For a good strategy that will help you plan before panicking,  take a look at this post about personal prioritization. 

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4. What Really is the Problem?

These math memes all allude to a shared overthinker's problem: Thinking too hard about a problem makes us lose focus of what we were trying to solve to begin with. Find some examples of this, as well as how to avoid the problem, here.

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5. Sleep is Something You Can't Afford to Lose

Many of us can identify with the painful problem of not getting the deep sleep our brains need to heal themselves. Some of us lose sleep while mulling tiny details from our days over and over. We may be thinking about one problem, but the truth is that losing sleep is an even bigger problem for your brain. Learn more about what I mean here.

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6. Brain Overload

A meme showing how bad it would look if the outside matched the feeling on the inside. Overthinking leads to stress which leads to health issues like chronic migraines. For some tips to help with those nasty headaches, look here.

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7. Tomorrow's Stress Today

For the overthinker, the main business of the day is stressing about what might happen tomorrow.  Whether it is work, relationships, or life in general, stress just seems to pile up for us overthinkers. You can find some helpful advice for coping with all of that stress here.

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8. Stressing Over Social Media

Tweets, posts, snaps, texts, emojis, vines, likes, dislikes, retweets, unfriends, memes! It is much too easy for an overthinker to get #StressedOut by social media. Take a minute to realize you aren't alone and enjoy an infographic.

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9. Take that First Step

To an overthinker, risk is everywhere. This meme shows us that without taking that first risk we believe to be so dangerous, we won't overcome even the smallest problems. To learn more about how risky it is to avoid risk, give this article a read.

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10. I Can Read Your Mind

via GIPHY

For us overthinkers, everything has a hidden meaning. But, most of the time the only negative thoughts out there are our own. Mind reading is a common cause of anxiety and you can learn about it and the other automatic negative thoughts here.

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11. Fear Itself

Overthinkers fear the unknown. To us, the unknown is a terrifying place where only the worst is possible and being confident is impossible. But is faking confidence a better alternative? Find out in this advice column.

12. Cage without a Door

 Here is a meme for overthinkers who can't even see the easier path. The truth is simple, though: our anxiety is just making everything harder on ourselves. We have to bust the myth that anxiety is good for us and this is a good start.

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13. Alone with all of these Thoughts

That brings us to our final meme. Overthinkers think we are all alone and nobody has the problems we do. But it isn't true at all! See the proof here.

My Metaphor for Overthinking

NASA's 36-foot Bio-Dome on the dormant volcano of Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

How I Protect My Brain By Protecting the Environment

It started with the realization I can change the climate of my mind. That awareness has grown into a deeper, ongoing feeling of responsibility: I am the steward of my brain's environment. 

For the first 39 years of my life, I was terrible to my brain. I would engage in deep, intrusive pondering, telling myself that I was working hard to "figure things out." The garbage I threw onto the ground (like Mad Men characters post-picnic) came in the form of black-and-white thoughts. Carbon emissions? For me, those were generalizations and the escalated catastrophizing I specialized in.   

A combination of reading The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living (summarized in this video about what that kind of behavior does to your brain) and mindfulness training helped me realize that the path I was on was hurting myself, my own mind, and others. As of the middle of last year, I assumed a more direct role of responsibility vis-a-vis tending to my brain.

Invisible stewarding in Kauai.

I began to visualize the environment of my brain. Instead of fixating on individual thoughts, I thought about the aggregate. I tuned in to the climate of my mind. When the weather's rough, I learned that I had the choice to take action to relax and help return the environment to a calmer, more peaceful state.

But I learned something more important over time: it's not just about trying to get to peaceful weather. It was more important to teach myself to get into the groove of good weather. First, I had  to start feeling the sun when it came out. I had to get used to returning to that feeling. I did it by leaning into the moments when I felt good. It's was like teaching myself to return to good feelings in a more automatic way.

This is the uniform I imagine myself in as steward.

These ideas are all based in cognitive behavioral therapy. For me, though, ideas are one thing—internalized behavior is another. To truly make something happen, I needed simple sentences or visualizations to return to. 

"I am the steward of my brain's environment" was the metaphor I came up with. I imagined myself cleaning up the trash and creating the environment I want to live in. Doing this incremental work while understanding intuitively what a good environment feels like many times a day is what's making the difference.

The steward doesn't look for one massive change. The steward understands it's all about consistency, and that increasingly positive changes in the brain's environment add up over time.  

Warning: you can't steward anyone else's mind, but you may notice that as your climate improves, the effect is contagious.

Originally published March 12, 2016. Updated June 21, 2018.

Try Yin Yoga If You're Stiff

It's more like deep stretching than exercise.

Awhile back, I found myself incredibly burnt out and at my ragged edge of stress. I also felt stiff in my whole body, but especially my outer hips, my IT bands, the backs of my legs, and my traps (between neck and shoulders).

The stiffness got worse and worse, propelled by poor desk posture, daily bike commuting, and never stretching, till it was a constant dull ache.

Yoga had historically never been a great fit for me, as I don’t have the upper body strength to do a vinyasa properly and I’m not coordinated enough to keep up with a fast moving class. (I love Pilates reformer for strength training, but it also contributes to my body stiffness.) I knew I desperately needed a new stretching routine so I started researching other types of yoga, including Yin Yoga.

When I attended my first Yin Yoga class, I found just the delicious deep stretches I was craving. For example, intense hip openers like pigeon, held for 2–5 minutes, with bolsters (a stiff pillow found in yoga studios) and props to keep the stretch manageable. The arrangements of bolsters and blankets, the supportive language used by teachers, and the new-to-me breathing techniques made me feel somehow totally mothered and cared for. I also found it much easier to drop into a nourishing meditative state, relative to seated meditation.

While it was love at first stretch, I’ll admit the first several weeks I felt a bit weird. My muscles had been so stiff that after a Yin class I felt like I walked funny for a few hours. Friends have described a “pinchy” sensation in the muscles after such a different use of them than the norm, and I could relate to that.

Bernie Clark's videos are behind a paywall, but it only costs $1 for the first month.

But over time I adjusted, and the longer term benefits of Yin Yoga on my life have been undeniable. I don’t feel stiff anywhere in my body — in fact I feel vibrant and great. I also love having a larger toolkit for pain, fear, anger, and frustration. In general I have a significantly more positive outlook on life that has had a ripple effect on every relationship. (I just asked my husband if I’ve been more vocally appreciative of him since starting Yin Yoga and he replied: “Noticeably so.”) It also does wonders for insomnia.

I could try to get into the science behind Yin Yoga, Western (wonderful for joint health) or Eastern (opens the meridians), but I’ll let you learn that stuff from a qualified instructor. You can search Yelp for studios that teach Yin Yoga near you, or sample some online resources if you’d like to try this at home. My favorite online practitioner is Bernie Clark, a retired scientist who does a great job of explaining the process in a rational way. I highly recommend his and other yoga videos at Gaia.com, though they are behind a paywall. ($.99 the first month, $9.99 after, and totally worth it in my opinion. They even have convenient apps for Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, etc.)

• Bernie Clark’s Yin Yoga videos at Gaia.com (behind paywall)

• Dozens of other great Yin Yoga videos at Gaia.com (behind paywall)

• Lower quality Yin yoga videos at Doyogawithme.com (free)

It’s been so easy to grab the Apple TV remote and turn one of these on that I’ve even got my exercise-abhorrent husband hooked.

Thanks for reading and I’d be happy to answer more questions about Yin Yoga in the comments. I hope it’s as helpful to someone who reads this as it has been for me. Stretch away!

If this experiment works for you, hit the heart (no login required) to let others know they should give it a try!  

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This post was originally published on Medium. It is reproduced with the author's permission. 

How to Avoid Emotional Eating

Emotional eating's the tendency to respond to stressful, difficult feelings by eating.

We all love to eat because food tastes good and it is satisfying. We can name our favorite home cooked meals as well as favorite restaurant food.  We often eat to celebrate, while watching a movie, for a reward, when we are bored or tired, and of course when we are hungry.  When friends or family get together it is often centered around eating.

Emotional eating is the tendency to respond to stressful, difficult feelings by eating, even when not experiencing physical hunger. Emotional eating (or emotional hunger) is often a craving for high-calorie or high-carbohydrate foods that have minimal nutritional value.  The foods that emotional eaters crave are often referred to as comfort foods, like ice cream, cookies, French fries, and pizza.

About 40% of people eat when they are feeling stressed. Consequently, stress can be associated with weight gain.  Emotional eating is common and significant because it can interfere with maintaining a healthy diet and contribute to obesity.

A combination of factors that create stress can result in emotional eating. When our body is under stress, the stress hormone cortisol triggers the body’s “fight or flight” response, which increases heart and breathing rate and blood flow to muscles. This response increases our appetite to give the body the fuel it needs to fight or flee.  The higher the stress the higher levels of cortisol.  The usual cravings are for comfort foods.

5 Ways to Manage the Stress That Leads to Emotional eating

1. Regular exercise and activity lowers the production of stress chemicals, which leads to a decrease in depression, anxiety and insomnia.

2. Engaging in prayer, meditation and relaxation is a powerful way to manage stress, lower blood pressure, and heart rate.

3.  Refraining from drug use and high levels of alcohol is important.  Many of these substances heighten the body’s response to stress and lower our ability to deal with a stressful situation effectively.
4. Be careful to allow yourself breaks in the day.  Refrain from over-scheduling yourself.
5. Learn how to re-frame your thoughts or respond differently to stressful life events with help from a counselor, pastor or group therapy.

The prevention of emotional eating primarily involves reducing stress, using constructive ways to understand and manage our thoughts and emotions, and by using food as sustenance rather than a way to solve or avoid problems.

Kathy Foust runs Lighthouse Counseling Services in Findley, Ohio.

How to Work Through the Pain of Divorce

When you get married, you don't want to believe that your marriage could be part of the 50% that don't make it for whatever reason. (Topping the list of the reasons people get divorced is financial issues, poor communication and infidelity. On that same list: alcohol abuse, domestic violence, sexual problems, incompatibility and basic unhappiness). If your issues are dealt with soon enough, there may be hope for the marriage, but sadly that doesn't always happen. It's a very alarming moment when you realiz that your marriage is going to fail.

Grieving is pain with a purpose. 

Divorce may solve one problem, but it brings with it a new set of challenges, especially when there are children involved. When divorce occurs, it brings with it many levels of emotions which is normal. We can expect to feel anger, bitterness, betrayal, shame, embarrassment, loneliness, abandonment, fear and confusion. It is important to own these feelings and work through them.

Understanding the Pain of Divorce

Divorce can be compared to a death. It is important to acknowledge the reality that the marital relationship has died. The way to deal with this emotional stage is to go through the grief process, which is the same process of bereavement used for an actual death. There are five stages to work through, however, they are not necessarily felt in the order listed.

Denial   

Often the actual problems in the marriage have been denied and ownership has not been taken. It is easier to deny or overlook the real issues.

Anger

This response is important as it signals the fact that the person who has been divorced has accepted the reality and significance of what has happened. Confronting the reality of divorce is a painful experience but is essential if we are going to move forward with life and let go of the past.

Bargaining

We don’t bargain only with our spouses, we also bargain with God. We might say to ourselves, "I tell God if he will help me through this, I will dedicate my life and my marriage to him." This is a natural part of dealing with a crisis. We're trying to gain some control in an out-of-control situation.

Depression

What happens when we finally realize we can’t bargain our way back to the blissful marriage we once had?  Some go back to denial or anger, but many move on to depression.  They hit rock bottom. As painful as depression is, it is a very important stage of grief.  We can’t heal if we don’t feel.

Acceptance

It’s easier said than done. Grieving is pain with a purpose.  The purpose is healing and strength. When we can finally take the responsibility for our healing and make positive health choices, we are on our way to accepting the divorce. We realize we never wanted to be in this situation but are ready to move in a positive direction and make the most of our life as a divorced person.

It takes time.

No two people will grieve exactly the same way. The key to recovery is in making wise decisions now about how we are going to live and what we are going to believe about ourselves.

Kathy Foust runs Lighthouse Counseling Services in Findley, Ohio.

The One Book That Eases My Anxiety

"The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts."

Taken from one of my favorite books—and people—in all of history...

I’ve struggled with anxiety for most of my life, most times it has been low level, however, I have the rare occasion where it can become extreme and the demons get the better of me which generally results in a crap outcome.

I actually experienced a more extreme episode recently and I’ve been using the time since to get back to what I call my anchors – the things I do in life which keep me focused and full of happy thoughts and keep the anxiety demons away. These anchors are a number of things, generally working out, meditating, eating health food etc but one of the most important for me is reading, as words are one of the most powerful resources we have. They have the power to inflict great pain and bring exceptional joy and love.

Whenever I start to feel the old struggle of anxiety hit me again or I experience a traumatic event, I turn to one book and this book is written by the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and called meditations.

Marcus was a great leader of the colossal Roman Empire and he faced many great challenges during his life. The book of meditations was actually Marcus personal diary, where he would remind himself of his own thoughts, what makes a good man and essentially keeping himself on the good path. It was never meant to be seen by any others eyes apart from his own, but thankfully his work has been shared with the world and it’s one of the greatest pieces of philosophy in known human existence.

What the book highlights is that Marcus regardless of his position in the world was just another man and he reminded himself of that daily. Throughout this book it can be clearly seen that the problems we have of today aren’t too dissimilar to what a man of 2000 years ago was also facing, he has similar anxieties about family, wealth and the uncertainty of the path ahead.

Going back to this book 2 – 3 times a year, reminds me that we all feel the same and in many ways, it calms my own anxiety to know that I’m not alone in my sometimes irrational way of thinking. Over 2000 years ago Marcus was experiencing the same issues and would remind himself through his diary and everyday practices to live in the moment, to appreciate what is here now.

I could write for days about this book and how it’s helped me, but instead of doing that I invite you to pick up a copy yourself, you’ll find it on Amazon for less than £5 and it could really change your life as it has mine.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." —Marcus Aurelius

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This essay was written by British mental health advocate Ross Stevenson. It was originally published on Medium. 

What Are Automatic Negative Thoughts?

Automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) is a way of thinking which all of us on occasion get caught in.  Aaron Beck, one of the founders of cognitive therapy, concluded that automatic negative thinking sabotages our best self and lead to a vicious circle of misery. How it feels: We get stuck in the same negative thoughts over and over.  Because of our brain’s plasticity, we can create new pathways for our new and changed thoughts to travel.

Our emotions are a response to the thoughts we have.  A negative thought will be followed by a negative emotion, and a positive thought will be followed by a positive emotion. It can be difficult to control our emotions however we can learn to change and control our thoughts. The first step is to become aware of our negative thoughts.

The following are some of the most common examples of automatic negative thoughts.

• Fortune Telling: We are predicting that something bad will happen, such as failing school, losing our job, or getting seriously ill. Fortune telling is the basis of much of our anxiety and worry.
• Catastrophic Thinking: This is similar to fortune telling, however not only will the bad thing happen but the consequence will be terrible. Minor setbacks or failures are believed to be more serious than they are, which leads to serious anxiety.
• Mind Reading:  We assume people are having negative thoughts about us. At a party, I may believe people don’t like me.   Mind reading is a cause of social anxiety.
• All or None Thinking:  We think in rigid, black or white categories.  If we don’t score 100 on the test, we feel like a complete failure.  If someone doesn’t like something about me, they dislike everything about me. This can lead to perfectionism and low self-esteem.
• Overgeneralizations:  One or two events make us believe that something is “always” or “never” true, such as “nothing ever works out for me.”  “I’m always messing up.”  This can lead to discouragement and low self-esteem.

After we have become aware and can identify our negative thinking by name, we can begin the process of change.  Try to stop your negative thinking and change the thought to a positive and true statement.  The next time you assume that people don’t like you, say to yourself, “I was just mind reading and I have no proof my thoughts are true.”  Changing automatic negative thinking is possible when we decide to make a change, by increasing our awareness.