The Simple Way to Ease Test Anxiety and Lift Performance

The Proven Way to Ease Test Anxiety and Lift Performance

Anxiety has a way of showing up at the worst times. When it’s brought to life by a test or an exam, it can get in the way of performance regardless of how well the test material is understood.  Maths tests in particular can spark enormous anxiety, but a new study has found a way settle it down, improve performance and create lasting change by altering the brain’s fear circuits.

What are the symptoms of test anxiety?

If you’ve struggled with any sort of anxiety, you’ll be familiar with the signs. The symptoms can be physical (nausea, clamminess, short shallow breathing, racy heart) or psychological (memory loss, freezing, decreased confidence, avoidance, feeling isolated – like you’re the only one who feels this way).

How does anxiety interfere with performance?

Research has found that anxiety interferes with working memory, particularly when the task involves some sort of computation, such as maths. Reduced working memory means that there is less capacity to access existing knowledge and apply it to the problem at hand. This leads to longer reaction times and more errors, all of which compromise performance. 

And this is how to beat it …

It’s long been accepted that phobias and fears can be eased with safe exposure to whatever it is that’s causing the fear. Drawing on this, researchers explored whether exposure to maths would ease maths anxiety and improve test performance.

The study, published in the The Journal of Neuroscience, was conducted on 46 third grade children. At the beginning of the study, the children were assessed on their levels of anxiety and placed into either a high anxiety group or a low anxiety, depending on their scores.

Brain imaging showed that when children in the high anxiety group performed simple addition problems, the fear circuits in the brain and the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible that triggers an anxiety response) lit up.

Each child’s then participated in an 8 week one-to-one tutoring program,  consisting of 22 lessons of addition and subtraction. 

Following their 8 weeks of individual tutoring, all children performed better on the maths problems. By exposing children to more maths problems, their anxiety was reduced and their performance improved.

Those who started out the study with high anxiety showed a significant reduction in anxiety. Brain imaging showed that the activity in the fear circuits and amygdala were significantly reduced in those children. Those in the low anxiety group showed no change, which is not surprising given that they were already low on anxiety scores. 

Why is these findings so exciting?

The promise of this study is that tutoring can work on a physiological level to actually relieve anxiety long term. Teaching children the skills to manage anxiety is important, but if anxiety can be turned around on a physiological level, the way forward is easier and the effects will be more long lasting. 

Other ways to help alleviate maths anxiety:
  1. ‘Brains can grow stronger.’ Let that be the mantra. People who are good at maths aren’t generally born that way. They make their brain stronger and better at maths through hard work, effort and practice. Children and teens who believe brains can grow will likely work harder to reach their goals and will openly and willingly approach challenge. Children who don’t believe brains can change are less likely to persevere in the face of challenge or ask for support when it’s needed. Learning maths is like learning another language – with the right amount of time and effort, anyone can do it.
  2. Read through the test first before answering anything. This seems to have an effect on test anxiety, as the unpredictability of what’s to come is taken away. Precious mental resources can then applied to the task at hand, rather than consumed by worrying about what lies ahead.

Anxiety can be intrusive and persistent, and when it comes to maths it can be enduring, discouraging children who can be good at maths from pursuing careers that draw on it heavily. The good news is that anxiety can be dealt with – science is telling us that – and the wisdom and creativity that would otherwise be smothered by anxiety, can flourish.

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So ready to get started with ‘Hey Little Warrior’ in Melbourne. This is my fourth time this year presenting this workshop in Melbourne and we sell out every time.

So what do we do here?! We dive into how to support young children with anxiety. It’s my favourite thing to talk about. I love it. Even more than whether or not I want dessert. We talk about new ways to work with anxiety in littles so they can feel braver and bigger in the presence of it. This workshop is loaded with practical strategies. I love presenting this workshop.

(And yes - always yes to dessert. As if I would ever skip the most important meal of the day. Pffftt.)

@compass_australia
They’re often called sensory preferences, but they’re sensory needs.

In our adult worlds we can move our bodies and ourselves to seek regulation. If we don’t like noise we’re less likely to be DJs for example. If we don’t love heights we’re less likely to be pilots or skydivers. If we feel overwhelmed, we can step outside, go into an office, go to the bathroom, or pop on headphones for a break. If we need to move, we can stand, walk to get a tea. At school, this is so much harder.

When bodies don’t feel safe, there will be anxiety. This will potentially drive fight (anger, tantrums), flight (avoidance, running away, movement), or shutdown (in quiet distress and can’t learn). 

These are physiological issues NOT behavioural ones.

Whenever we can, we need to support physiological safety by accommodating sensory needs AND support brave behaviour. What’s tricky is disentangling anxiety driven by unmet sensory needs, from anxiety driven by brave behaviour.

The way through is to support their physiological needs, then move them towards brave behaviour.

Schools want to support this. They want all kids to be happy and the best they can be, but there will be a limit on their capacity to support this - not because they don’t want to, but because of a scarcity of resources.

There will often be many children with different physiological needs. Outside school there is nowhere else that has to accommodate so many individual needs, because as adults we won’t be drawn to environments that don’t feel okay. In contrast, school requires all kids to attend and stay regulated in the one environment.

For now, we don’t have a lot of options. Yes there are schools outside mainstream, and yes there is home school, but these options aren’t available to everyone.

So, until mainstream schools are supported with the resources (staff, spaces, small classes, less demand on curriculum … and the list goes on), what can we do?

- Help school with specific ways to support your child’s physiology while being mindful that teachers are also attending to the needs of 25+ other nervous systems. But be specific.
- Limit the list. Make this a ‘bare minimum needs’ list, not a ‘preferences’ one.♥️
Brave often doesn’t feel like ‘brave’. Most often, it feels like anxiety. If there is something brave, important, new, hard, there will always be anxiety right behind it. It’s the feeling of anxiety that makes it something brave - and brave is different for everyone.♥️

#anxietyawareness #childanxiety #anxietysupport #anxietyinkids #parent #positiveparenting
Recently I chatted with Sharon from the ADHD Families Podcast. I loved this chat. We took a dive into anxiety and ADHD, including anxiety at school and some strategies for schools and parents to support kiddos with anxiety and ADHD. Listen to the full episode 
here https://www.thefunctionalfamily.com/podcasts/adhd-families-podcast

thefunctionalfamily
Remember the power of ‘AND’. 

As long as they are actually safe:

They can feel anxious AND do brave.

They can feel like they aren’t ready for brave, AND be ready brave.

They can wish to avoid AND they can stay (or not be taken home).

They can be angry, anxious, and push us away AND we can look after them through the feelings without avoiding the brave/ new, hard/ important. 

We can wish for their anxiety, anger, sadness to be gone AND we can be with them without needing them to be different.

We can believe them (that they are anxious, scared, angry) AND believe in them (that they are capable).

When we hold their anxiety AND their capacity for brave, in equal measure and with compassion, we can show them that their anxiety doesn’t cancel their brave.♥️

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