It’s the morning of the big day, and you’ve done everything right. You said good-bye to your friends early the night before and got a good night’s sleep. You woke up early and had a healthy breakfast. You packed your calculator, your extra pencils, your government issued ID, and your jacket. You didn’t fight with your brother on your way to the test, and your family wished you good luck and told you they were proud of you.
Now you’re hunched over the test, three sections in, and your heart is pounding and sweat is beading your forehead. You’re in a full-blown panic attack over these sentence completion questions. Your anxiety is only making things worse. How can you get over the fear and return to focus and intensity?
Start by breathing deeply. Make sure you are inflating your entire belly with air as you do so, and breath with your diaphragm. Hold your breath for a few seconds, and then let all of the air out slowly. Try this a few times as you focus on your fears. Don’t be hard on yourself – don’t think, “I can’t believe I’m wasting my time thinking like this. I should be working on the test.” Fear is a valid emotion for you to be feeling right now – this is a difficult, important test. Don’t be dismissive of your concerns, but remind yourself that your fears should not be in control of you. YOU are in control.
Panic attacks are caused by our imaginations taking over and coming up with all sorts of frightening images of the future. “I’m going to fail this test, and then I’m not going to get into college, and I’m going to have to live at my home with my parents for the rest of my life while all my friends go off to college and have a great time.” Remember that this is just your imagination working. Your parents called us – they wouldn’t let you live at home for the rest of your life, anyway! Jokes aside, the only control you have is over the present. Whatever will happen will happen in weeks and months and years from now, and between now and then you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make new decisions that could erase any damage you make with your decisions today. So return your focus to what you do have control over – the here and now.
As your breathing draws your heartbeat back down to normal, give yourself a couple compliments. You’re a pretty good kid. You are smart enough to ace this test – remember how great you did on your test last week? You’re feeling panic and anxiety over this test because you care about it, and that’s very close to just enough to do well on it!
Written By: Catherine Martin
Victory Step Education Team
