If you are ready to CONTROL your test anxiety, you need to try these 5 therapist-approved coping strategies to overcome and beat your exam anxiety.
*They’re some of my favorites.
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Self Care
The very first thing that I like to remind everybody is that you've got to maintain your self-care.
If you are not taking care of yourself and your basic self-care needs, then you're not going to have the stamina, energy, or mindset in order to take that test or exam at your fullest capacity.
I’m talking about the boring, basic, maintenance, self-care kind of stuff.
😴 Maintaining your sleep schedule
🍎 Making sure you're eating nutritiously throughout the day
👟 Moving your body
…all that good stuff.
If you would like a fun way of keeping track of your self-care, I highly recommend that you sign up for free access to the Self Care Bundle.
The Self Care Bundle includes a bunch of curated resources to help amplify your self care needs for mental health and wellness.
There’s even a set of Self Care BINGO cards for Teens, which is like, really fun and really cool. *People seem to really love those.
Pomodoros
Using Pomodoros is a time management strategy that I personally like to use and I highly recommend it to others.
A Pomodoro is when you work in 25-minute increments with 5-minute breaks. So when that timer goes off after 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break.
Now you might not be able to use this strategy during an exam, but you can use it when you are studying and preparing for your test.
The idea with Pomodoros is that allowing yourself space of 25 minutes to just laser focus on learning a particular topic or section for the exam, helps you maintain your focus. It can also help you get into a state of flow where things are just kind of clicking, but not burning out your energy.
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Bio Breaks
When you are studying, or even during exam time, you want to make sure that you take bio breaks.
Bio breaks are when you tend to your biological needs:
🍿 grabbing a snack or meal if it's mealtime
🚰 drinking a glass of water
🚽 going to the bathroom if you need to
🤸♀️ moving or stretching
Just kind of honing in on biologically.
Ask yourself: “what do I need to recalibrate so that I can get ready for my next study session?”
Make a Coping Ahead Plan
And so, before you even take the test or the exam, you have to know what sort of coping strategies you're going to use during the exam.
Now y'all know I am like, the queen of coping skills. Let's be real, right? I can't even like tell you how many coping skills videos I have for a variety of different situations, so I'm not going to go into too many coping skills here, but I am going to tell you that you need a coping ahead plan for your test anxiety.
So I want you to consider and think about the coping skills or strategies that you already know that work for you and that you can use before, during, and after the exam.
What would you need ahead of time to get ready? Like, do you need any additional tools or anything like that? Maybe wear a special bracelet, whatever.
You definitely want to commit those to memory or have them written down somewhere where you can readily access them. I know a lot of kids will actually use their notes app on their phones. I highly recommend that.
Now I know in a lot of exams or tests you're not allowed to bring in other materials that are written. But before you go in or on a break, you could totally look at them real quick.
I would say have at least six to eight coping strategies that you know that you can use during test time. You want to make sure that it is applicable and usable in this situation.
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One of my very favorite coping strategies that you can take anywhere with you is taking a pause and deep breathing.
So breathing in slowly through your nose, and even slower out through your mouth.
Doing this just kind of resets and recalibrates everything. Takes only a moment and is a huge game-changer.
Ask for Help
And don't forget to ask for help. If your test anxiety is out of control or it's really getting in the way of your performance at school or on these exams, it's okay to ask for help.
There are different resources available for people who struggle with such extreme test anxiety that it's getting in the way of their learning.
Ask your teachers or your school what sort of resources they have for you. Need help knowing how to ask your teacher for help? Check out this video: https://youtu.be/4qPdeMTJleg
Potentially even consider working with a therapist (like me) on your test anxiety. We can really help advocate and navigate the school situations for you and give you some useful strategies on concentrating and managing your anxiety and also getting to the root source of that anxiety too.
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