How about we spend some time thinking about two words that we don't like to hear
? If your answer is "yes", I must first say that this answer is an important step towards taking a closer look at the concept of "exam anxiety". Being willing to touch these two words at the same time, even one of which we usually do not like to hear, can be a valuable experience.
So what is this thing we call "exam anxiety"? Is he a doomsayer, an anxiety monster
or an enemy that immobilizes us? Or is it a companion that will bring us into touch with the things we value in life if we learn how to approach it?
Let's try to take a closer look at this issue together.
The word “exam” can often cause many memories and thoughts to arise in our minds, and many different emotions and body sensations to emerge in our bodies.
Our minds can host hundreds of different thoughts such as "what if I fail?", "if I fail, I won't be loved", "if I want to be strong, I have to succeed", "if I don't pass this exam, I will be disgraced to everyone".
Different emotions and body sensations may occur in our body, such as anxiety, restlessness, shaking, sweating, shortness of breath, and feeling of tightness in the chest, accompanying these thoughts. Each individual has experienced, to a greater or lesser extent, these emotions, thoughts and physical symptoms associated with exams and tests in his/her own world, and perhaps continues to experience them.
One of the most basic points we need to emphasize here is that the existence of all these feelings and thoughts is a completely expected process. "How?" I can almost hear you say. “How is it possible that the presence of these thoughts, feelings and physical symptoms does not pose any problem?
and “If all this is not a problem, why do some students have difficulty revealing their true performance due to their internal experiences during the exam?” Let's look for answers to these questions together.
First of all; our mind, our emotions Let's start by stating that our body sensations are our most basic features that make us human. If we didn't have the part we call the mind that guides us in daily life, no one would be telling us what time we should wake up, whether we should get ready and go to work, or whether it would be a good idea to take an umbrella with us if the weather is rainy.
If we didn't have emotions, for example if we weren't afraid of losing, we probably wouldn't make an effort for many things that give meaning to our lives and are valuable to us. What if we didn't have physical symptoms?
Would we feel butterflies in our stomachs when we received good news, or could we understand what a suffering friend felt when he said "my chest feels tight"?
Because of all these and much more, every part of us is very valuable and necessary.
However, we; We need to be able to recognize what kind of data our mind, body and emotions present to us and to decide what kind of behavior we will take with this data.
. Learning how to use the systems placed in our existence is a necessity for a peaceful life. For example, each application on a phone we purchase has its own operating system and certain services it offers us.
It is not possible to benefit from that application without understanding these systems. When we look from this perspective, the mind placed in our being helps us to solve the problems we encounter in daily life.
If we come across a pothole while driving on the road, our mind may tell us "there is a pothole there, you should cross the road" and this thought helps us to take action that will protect ourselves from danger: on the road.
confrontation behavior. However, before following the advice of the thoughts produced by the same mind, it is necessary to evaluate whether that thought is useful for us. During the exam, when the thought "If you haven't solved this question, you are an idiot, just leave the exam" crosses our mind and
What do you think will happen when we buy this idea without questioning its benefits? When we go shopping, would it be beneficial for us to buy clothes that we do not need or that will not be of any use to us in order not to offend the sales staff?
How would we choose to act
if it wouldn't bring any benefit? For example, can we say to that person “thank you, but I don't need it right now”
? In fact, we can do the same thing with our mind. We can refuse to buy into that thought that our mind
offers by saying, “Thank you
but right now this thought doesn't bring me any closer to the life I want to live.” In the therapeutic approach we call Acceptance Commitment Therapy, the state of unconditionally buying the thoughts, as expressed above, is defined as merging with the thoughts, and this merging state is defined as where we want to go.
It is observed with the client whether it takes him/her in the right direction. The ability to distance ourselves from our thoughts, which is the opposite of uniting with thoughts,
means buying the thought that is useful to us, thanking our mind for the thought that is not useful to us, and being able to say no to it.
. The good news is that keeping distance from our thoughts is a skill that can be developed if we make the effort.
“What about the emotions and physical sensations that accompany the thoughts in our minds?
What will happen?” “Is it possible to understand how emotions and sensation systems work?”
Now let's look for answers to these questions. The situations mentioned in the previous paragraph, which we call “merging with thoughts”
, are often accompanied by unwanted emotions. When combined with the thought "I'm trying in vain, I won't be able to do it anyway", many emotions such as anxiety, sadness and disappointment probably arise. Then, the effort to get rid of these unwanted emotions comes into play. So what harm can there be in trying to get rid of emotions? Let's imagine that a bee comes to a person who is very afraid of bees.
To get rid of this bee, he should quit what he was doing.
What do you think will be the result of trying to repel the bee with hand gestures?
What do you think? As we can guess, this behavior will probably result in the bee disturbing that person much more
. However, not being too busy with the bee and letting it be there might be a more suitable option for this person. Trying to get rid of unwanted emotions in our daily lives may cause unwanted emotions to increase and cause more discomfort.
So what is the solution then? Solution; It means noticing our emotions
, allowing them to be there with us, and volunteering to make room for them.
“So how do we do this?” Acceptance and Commitment Therapy practices and many different schools of therapy offer useful solutions and techniques to us and our clients in gaining these skills.
If you remember, we started this article by discussing the subject of "Exam Anxiety". In the following sections, we have seen that what we call “exam anxiety” is a name we give to our inner experience and the symptoms that this experience reveals.
This situation actually tells us this: If we could improve our skills in interacting with our emotions, thoughts and behaviors, we would be able to avoid diagnoses and concepts such as "test anxiety, depression, eating disorder".
Instead of focusing and complaining about how they disrupt our lives, we can evaluate the difficulties we experience as an opportunity for change.
For this purpose, we can improve our understanding, awareness and skills in how we can relate to our inner and outer world.
This will enable us to take behavioral steps that will add meaning to our lives by enabling us to get in touch with the values we value.
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