Why We Love Anxiety (And You Should, Too!)
Pass your exams and confidently move forward with hypnotherapy.
A number of things can reduce test anxiety and increase your performance on test day. The good new your existing test anxiety is the way in to creating a protocol that overcomes your anxiety. Without it you wouldn’t be creating one. Your test anxiety is a gift, use it work it, work with it.
Nervousness about test-taking is ok and can sharpen your mind and ground zero your attention. But with test anxiety, feelings of worry and self-doubt can interfere with optimal test-taking performance and make you feel depressed and hopeless. Test anxiety affects everyone, you are not alone, whether you’re a primary or secondary school student, a college student, or a professional who has to take tests for career advancement or certification.
- Are you in high school trying to score high on the SAT/ACT ?
- Are you finding it difficult to retain information?
- Are you in school and struggling?
- Are you taking the MCAT to get into medical school and become a doctor?
- Have you finished law school and need to pass the bar?
- Are you taking the test to become a nurse?
- Are you going in to take the test to secure licensure to become an MFT or PsyD?
- What test do you need help with?
- Do you need help with study habits?
- Do you need to focus?
- Do you experience test anxiety and forget everything you have studied and freeze?
We help YOU feel less anxious and more confident with standardized tests
- K-12 level: SSAT, SHSAT, ISEE, TOEFL
- Graduate level: GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, DAT, QAT
- College level: SAT, ACT, AP Exams, SAT Subjects, PSAT
Jean is now in her last year of medical school! Thanks to Rochelle.
I scored high on my MCAT!
“Thank you for helping me to study and even score high on my MCAT!”~ Jean R Los Angeles, CA
Rochelle you were essential in my success! Thank you for being part of my journey. You were essential in me passing my exam.”~ M.P Culver City, CA
Do you suffer from Test Anxiety? Can test anxiety be overcome? YES! And you can improve your test scores!
You went to class, completed your homework, and studied. You arrive at the exam confident about the material yet suffer from test anxiety, a type of performance anxiety. Test taking is often the most difficult part of the process. These test determine academic success!
Can you imagine what it would feel like for you to take your next exam feeling calm and relaxed? What would it be like if right before you had to take your next test you walked in the room feeling confident and calm knowing that you would do well and pass?
Your new reality through hypnosis is to be calm and relaxed, confident and in command of your knowledge. Hypnosis is extremely effective in helping you improve your scholastic achievements and test taking performances.
Causes:
- Lack of preparation. Not wanting to study, or afraid to study, and waiting until the last-minute can leave individuals feeling anxious and overwhelmed. (What if you wanted to study and prepare?)
- Fear of failure. While the pressure to perform can act as a motivator, it can also be devastating to students who tie their self-worth to the outcome of a test. This is one of the main factors that influence poor test taking. (What if you no longer feared your result and were relaxed and performed?)
- Poor track record. Previous problems or bad experiences with test-taking can lead to a negative mindset and influence performance on future tests. No longer take on the belief, the label, that you are a poor student. (Be careful, we become what we think.)
Symptoms:
- Physical symptoms. Headache, diarrhea, nausea, excessive sweating, shortness of breath, light-headedness, rapid heartbeat and feeling faint can all occur. Fear takes over and “test anxiety” can lead to a panic attack, which is the abrupt onset of intense fear or discomfort in which individuals may feel like they are unable to breathe or having a heart attack.
- Emotional symptoms. Feelings of anger, fear, disappointment, and helplessness are common emotional responses to test anxiety. Thoughts of, “I’m not good enough,” can interfere with the student dreams of their future.
How can I overcome Test Anxiety?
Hypnotherapy can reduce test anxiety, study habits, and increase your performance. Becoming nervous before a test is normal and can help sharpen your mind and focus your attention. However; with test anxiety, feelings of worry, panic and self-doubt can interfere with your test-taking performance and make you fearful and lower your scores. Test anxiety can affect anyone, whether you’re a primary or secondary school student, a college student, young or older, an employee who has to take tests for career advancement or certification.
What is our test taking program?
Session #1 – Reduce Your Anxiety, Fear, and Stress:
- Stop the fear and relax. See yourself as the success that you truly are! Retain what you study!
- We work on reducing anxiety before and during tests. The more relaxed and confident the student is, the easier and successful the process and memory recall will be.
Session #2 – Stop it! - By using pattern interruption we “Stop” the negative fearful thinking that is hindering you from achieving your goals.
Session #3 –Increase Memory Recall: - In the test taking performance program, we focus on increasing memory recall and becoming lazar focused. What you study you will retain, using our protocols! “Your mind is a sponge with a filing cabinet that must be filled with the right information.”
Session #4 – Climb The Mountain of Success:
- See yourself achieving all that you know you can be, YOU DID IT! Knowing you
- Prepared to reduce anxiety
- You now have relaxation tools you can use.
- Now you know how to relax; you are in control. …
- End the negative cycles of fear. …
- Replace with positive reinforcement mantras
- Learn to expect some anxiety and appreciate it
- Now understand that test anxiety can be a “negative habit” that has formed over years.
During the hypnotic process to end test anxiety, we build positive anchors into each session that terminate old negative stories about your test anxiety. An anchor is a thought of, “I can do it,” and a sense of peace that can be accessed at any time while taking a test. Students report that after their final session their scores drastically improve. All of the sessions are recorded so that the student can continue to reinforce the new positive suggestions.
No sure if hypnotherapy or my method will work? Please reach out and book a FREE consultation with me and tell me your story.
Talk to me about your issue, often an initial traumatic event occurred. Get rid of that and viola your issues shift. Schedule a free online consultation, it will immediately make you feel better!
Hypnotherapy Works! Supporting News Articles that prove Test Anxiety can be mitigated:
A lot is expected of today’s college students. They are under an enormous amount of pressure to succeed in academics. The pressure comes from themselves, parents, professors, and friends. This causes a lot of stress for students. Success in college is a stepping-stone to being successful in a career after graduation, so students feel the need to perform at their full potential. It is important for struggling college students to seek help in reducing their stress with natural treatments such as hypnotherapy.
For some students, the stress and anxiety of school and academics can become overwhelming. Stress affects students in many different ways. For some students, their grades start to suffer, which can affect their GPA in the long-run. Other students become so overwhelmed by stress that they drop out of college. According to the 2000 census, 50% of the population in the United States over the age of 25 attended college. However, only 60% of those who attended college earned an associate, bachelor, or graduate degree. This means that 40% did not finish college for various reasons.
Sapp (1990) studied the role hypnosis plays on treating test-anxiety in college students. The participants in the study were randomly divided into two groups. One group served as the control group and received no form of treatment. The other group received cognitive-behavioral hypnosis. The researcher evaluated the effects of hypnosis in improving academic performance and decreasing test anxiety.
Both groups were enrolled in a demanding psychology course. All students were evaluated based on their midterm grade and anxiety levels. The hypnosis group reported a significant reduction in test anxiety and improvement in academic achievement. Both groups were evaluated 6 weeks after the end of the course and the hypnosis group was found to have maintained their hypnosis treatment gains in achievement and reduction in anxiety. Cognitive behavioral hypnosis is a highly effective form of treatment that helps students improve performance and reduce anxiety.
Carrese (1998) outlines the benefits of teaching self-hypnosis to college freshman. The researcher describes the steps taught to students, including relaxation techniques and the usage of imagery. Self-hypnosis was able to help the college freshman cope with stress and the pressures of college.
Whether cognitive-behavioral hypnosis is used or self-hypnosis is used, hypnotherapy is a very effective form of treating stress and anxiety in college students. Having the ability to better manage stress not only improves their academic performance in college, but will continue to help them cope with stress in other situations throughout their lives.
Test Anxiety Facts:
- If a student has a history of poor performances on tests he or she will continue to perpetuate past results. The individual will experience immense shame about previous test scores and is self-defeating in his assumptions about the future: “I will never be any good at testing.”
- Students fear that the college admission test will define his or her educational and professional trajectory in life. This fear shades the exam with excessive importance and triggers a flight response
- Students that are high-achievers worry that a sub-stellar performance will dramatically undermine their portfolio of academic success. At a psychological level, he or she fears the dissolution of an identity – being the “cleaver kid” – that is severely haunted by grades and test scores.
- If a student is a part of a minority group he or she may fear that poor performance will confirm negative stereotypes about his identity: gender, class, race, etc.
- Stereotype threat: is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. Since its introduction into the academic literature, stereotype threat has become one of the most widely studied topics in the field of social psychology. ~ http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/february25/stereotype-threat-harms-latent-ability-022509.html
The phenomenon of stereotype threat is well documented in the field of psychology. Don’t be seduced by it, overcome it’s power, soar ahead instead!
Sources:
- 2000 Census. Census Scope. Retrieved on May 15, 2009: http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_education.html
- Carrese, M.A. (1998). Managing stress for college success through self-hypnosis. Journal of Humanistic Education and Development, 36(3), 134-142.
- Sapp, M. (1990). Hypnotherapy and test anxiety: Two cognitive-behavioral constructs. The effects of hypnosis in reducing test anxiety and improving academic achievement in college students. Report. ERIC ID: ED328163.Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/026286_college_hypnosis_students.html#ixzz4IwKoAXjg
- “Hypnosis works and the empirical support is unequivocal in that regard. It really does help people,” says Michael Yapko, PhD, a psychologist and fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. “But hypnosis isn’t a therapy in and of itself. Most people wouldn’t regard it that way.” http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/01/hypnosis.aspx