Tests Anxiety

Let’s face it – almost everyone feels a little bit nervous right before taking a major exam. Especially when there’s pressure to perform great on the test, one could not help but feel anxious and restless. Luckily, for some people, this nervousness can be channeled into positive energy that can rev up one’s concentration and recall rate while taking the test.

However, some individuals have a more severe case of anxiety before taking an exam. Sometimes, no matter how prepared one is, one can still freeze up and blank out right before an exam, leading to poor concentration or performance.

This is called test anxiety, and you can help control it by learning to spot its onset by detecting test anxiety-physical symptoms.

What is Test Anxiety?

Test anxiety is a form of performance anxiety, which is a feeling one gets when put into a situation where good performance is expected, or when there’s pressure to do great. This may occur when going on stage to perform, going to important job interviews, and taking the pitcher’s mound among many others.

One of the most common test anxiety-physical symptoms is the feeling of “butterflies in the stomach,” which is sometimes coupled with headache or stomachache. Others may also experience shakiness, profuse sweating, and rapid beating of the heart. Still, more severe cases of test anxiety-physical symptoms can be manifested through vomiting or passing out.

Causes of Test Anxiety

Anxiety is brought about by expecting a stressful event. This not only affects the mind, but also the body. When one is under stress, the human body releases adrenaline, which sets it up to handle danger. This is sometimes called as the “fight or flight” reaction, which causes test anxiety-physical symptoms like rapid breathing, sweating, pounding heart, and etc.

Test anxiety may also worsen if you keep on focusing on negative things like forgetting everything you studied for, worrying about the difficulty of the test, and such. Others also get stressed out by test anxiety-physical symptoms and ask themselves “What if I pass out or vomit?”

This can lead to a vicious cycle where focusing on the bad things could lead to more anxiety.

Symptoms of Test Anxiety

There are several symptoms of test anxiety, and they may either be mild or severe. One may feel test anxiety-physical symptoms, behavioral, or emotional symptoms.

For test anxiety-physical symptoms, this may include nausea, headache, profuse sweating, diarrhea, shortness of breath, light-headedness, and rapid heart beat. Sometimes, test anxiety can develop into a panic attack, a sudden onset of extreme fear or discomfort which could make one feel as if they are having a heart attack.

Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to effectively cope with test anxiety. Learning how to detect test anxiety-physical symptoms is one of the first steps you can take in order to manage test anxiety. This will help you identify its onset so you can later on apply strategies and techniques to control it and avoid the cycle of anxiety.