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Comprehensive Strategies to Fire the Inner Critic and Eliminate Test Anxiety and Stress
For a majority of test takers, the mere thought of an upcoming exam can elicit anything from a minor irritation to a spasmodic explosion of dread. These extremes, and all expressions in between, can seriously impede one’s ability to study, or worse, to perform under test conditions. For some, anxiety diverts one’s attention from staying focused; for others, it is the inability to sleep, or in its most full-blown form, it is complete paralysis on test day, in front of the computer screen or test booklet.
Anxiety stems from a variety of things, most often from the expectation that we cannot meet our destiny. TEST PREP NEW YORK helps test-takers deal with anxiety in several ways, including the use of hypnosis, the Emotional Freedom Technique, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, meditation and visualization, sound and visual therapies, biofeedback, reiki, games and, of course, coaching.
Click to get a review of our Hypnoprep technique. You will also find some background on standardized tests, and what your life experiences bring to the test-taking equation.
We hope you find this helpful!
Bara Sapir, MA, CH
HOW TEST PREP NEW YORK CAN HELP YOU
Through hypnosis, reiki, NLP, energy work, aromatherapy and more holistic therapies, we can help you achieve:
• anxiety relief
• stress relief
• improved concentration
• increased focus
• augmented confidence
• a release of restlessness
• a sense of abundance
• relaxation
TEST PREP NEW YORK offers a customized approach to confront each person’s particular malady. Each of these approaches is solution-focused. When learned or when working with a professional, they can alleviate mental problems with your test-taking experience.
TEST PREP NEW YORK provides several modes to move through the anxiety and stress triggered by tests. Most of these skills are learned and can be integrated to complement any healthy lifestyle, without an impending test or crisis. The techniques we use include the following:
Hypnosis
Keeping an open mind is very important for the success of the hypnosis. Here at TEST PREP NEW YORK, we will use language that works best with your learning style or how you experience the world. Imagery or sensual language is the language of the subconscious mind and it controls many of your body functions and emotional responses. It is “the sleeping giant” that can put incredible power into your hands.
You have power over habits, fears, tensions, anxiety, pain, confidence and even your mental and physical state of well-being. For most of your adult life, you have trained only one part of your brain, the part that knows facts and figures, numbers and letters. We will call upon the other part of the brain that uses creative images to establish balance.
Your sessions will be most effective when you:
• know what you want and when you want it
• understand the tools you are going to use to achieve your goals
• completely trust the process, since you now understand how you are
• going to achieve your goals
• follow the recommended number of sessions by your hypnotist
• do the reinforcement practice daily at home for the recommended time
(See below for more on hypnosis.)
EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique
EFT is considered a psychological acupressure technique used to optimize emotional health. Its core belief is that the cause of any negative emotion is a disruption in the body’s energetic system. EFT removes negative emotions and implements positive goals through a form of acupressure. EFT short-circuits or emotional block from the body's bio-energy system, and restores the mind and body’s balance. This allows you to become more open and ready to embark on your creative and mental challenges. By implementing EFT, you begin to fire the inner critic, and move into the preparation and/or test mode with ease and without distractions
.
NLP – Neuro-Linguistic Programming
NLP is an effective and powerful method to discern how you experience your world or our “reality map.” Neuro refers to neurology, our nervous system – the mental pathways our five senses take which allow us to see, hear, feel, taste and smell. Linguistic refers to our language ability’ how we put together words and phrases to express ourselves as well as how our “silent language” of movement and gestures reveals our states, thinking styles and more. Programming, taken from computer science, refers to the idea that our thoughts, feelings and actions are like computer software programs.
When we adapt those programs, just as when we change or upgrade software, we immediately get possible changes in our performance. Through the use of visualization and other kinesthetic means, NLP offers other ‘maps’ or ways to change thought patterns, which in turn, assists in changing behavior. For test preparation and personal growth, it provides keys to eliminate blocks and patterns of behavior that don’t support your move towards excellence.
For example, we learn how others have responded to a particular situation we are facing and see the differences in the approaches and in the outcomes. Based on it, we step out of our own map and step into the other's. When this happens, the rewards are many. We experience a deep connection to the successful test taker, and it can radically change our upcoming experience and results.
Meditation and Visualization
Meditation is a state in which the body is consciously relaxed and the mind is allowed to become calm and focused. In creative visualization, you imagine whatever you want to manifest. Then you give the idea, image, or feeling positive energy by focusing on it regularly, until it becomes reality. Creative visualization posits a spiritual source and a supply of infinite energy, love and wisdom discoverable in the inner beings of humans.
Coaching
Coaching sees you as creative, capable, intelligent, and having answers within yourself or the resources to find them. Coaches act on the premise that the definitive expert regarding your life and work is you. Coaching is a partnering of two equals, which focuses on the unique and intrinsic qualities already within you that may not be recognized or appreciated. The coach helps you affirm and embrace your own true self.
Other techniques
Other strategies we use include, but are not limited to, sound and visual therapies, biofeedback and games.
We also work with affiliated professionals to provide the following services:
• admissions consultation
• application essay and resume writing
• psychotherapy
• massage
• acupuncture
• fitness
• nutrition
• feng shui and study-space consultations
• herbal and homeopathic remedies
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A bit of history on standardized tests …
Then… First and foremost, the College Board, Educational Testing Services, Law School Admissions Council and Graduate Management Admissions Council are all private companies, not government agencies. They are businesses whose primary clients are the schools that use their services; secondarily, they serve the test-takers.
In the beginning, these tests had clear intentions, and some demographics may have been favored for admittance to the college/graduate/law/business school pool, and some claim that questions on the test reflected this. The test questions would prevent segments of the population from excelling by asking questions that were impossible to answer. Further, the test stuck to societal norms including gender roles.
Carl Brigham, a psychologist from Princeton University, is the progenitor of standardized tests. Learning a little bit about him and his intentions offers a revealing testimony to the karma of the test: is not a straightforward institutional standard. In 1924, his adaptation of his own Army intelligence test, called the Army Alpha, for use in college admissions, was the SAT. When he invented it, he marketed it to various schools including the military academies and some Ivy League schools.
With the advent of WWII, the Army and Navy gave an adapted SAT called the Army-Navy College Qualification Test to 300,000 people at multiple sites on the same day. This was a huge administrative feat and the beginning of standardized testing in the United States.
Brigham wrote a book in 1923 called A Study of American Intelligence based on his work on the Army Alpha Test. He analyzed the test results by race and found, as people who do that have always found, that people of color, Jews, Mediterraneans, anybody who wasn't what he would call Nordic, were inherently intellectually inferior. While he later disowned the following theory, Brigham felt the country was in big trouble because too many of these people were immigrating. This book is a racist book by today's standards, typical of establishment thinking of the time.
Now the reason it is important to know this history is because it affects the test you will be taking. Maybe they have included a more culturally diverse representation of characters in math questions or reading comprehension essays, or they have switched some of the “traditional” gender roles where women can be doctors and men homemakers (well, they haven’t done THAT yet.) The test has the baggage of the past. In other words, it has bad karma.
For more information on Carl Brigham and the history of testing, go to:www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/lemann.html
For more information on the role race and identity may play on testing, read: Malcom Gladwell, Blink, especially pages 56 – 57.
Now… The people who write these tests and their questions today are no smarter than any of the other people you encounter on a daily basis. Some test writers are students, some are teachers. Some are people who just want to make a little extra money on the side. The process includes something like that of submitting a story to a newspaper: the questions get submitted, then scrutinized and edited, and experimented upon. Just don’t think that Bill Gates, Steve Hawking, Marie Curie, Gertrude Stein and other genius brainiacs are out there writing the material. The writers are just ordinary people. One test prep company even knows who the head people are. I myself once met the GMAT folks over lunch. They were very normal and unassuming.
Beyond the history, the other part of the equation is you, the person taking the test. So, then, who are you and what experiences, past and present, make you prepared for this test?
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How your past and present affect test-taking …
Past… If Mrs. Buzzkill thought you sucked at math in third grade, well, Mrs. Buzzkill very well might be by your side on test day, reminding you of how awful you are at numbers. And Mr. Evil Sloth who never hedged bets on your intelligence? Welcome, Mr. ES. He’ll be there, too, cheering on your demise. This is why it is important to Fire the Inner Critic! What happened in your past is always a character and plays a role to a greater or lesser degree in your conscious when you are taking the test. And unless you had allies and mentors you admired, you just don’t want to be with your academic nemeses on test day…or during
test preparation.
So, at this point it might be good to check in with whom your coaches and heroes have been. Make that list and boldly – or even demurely – invite them into your test ring.
Present… Did you just quit smoking? Move? Break up with a partner? Lose your job? Anything and everything that has been a major jolt to your system will have an effect on your score. What is happening in your present is superimposed on your past, and is either contradicting, overriding or superseding it. Who you are and how you live affects how you take the test. The mental and physical rigor only start with the skill sets necessary for excelling on the test. You are not simply a brain in front of the computer, but a matrix of biological, emotional and intellectual “stuff.”
As such, you need to care for and nourish each aspect of yourself. Much of it is common sense, such as healthy eating, exercise and getting enough sleep, but also making sure you are balancing study time with activities you enjoy, seeing friends and loved ones, maintaining or igniting a contemplative practice and not stopping your life for months on end because of a test, are all important aspects.
At TEST PREP NEW YORK, we understand that each person needs a different program to adhere to, and that moving through the study part should be effective, easy, efficient and fun.
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More on hypnosis…
WHAT IS HYPNOSIS?
We all know that the human body and mind can be preconditioned for success or failure, for sleep or insomnia, for pleasure or pain. If you constantly believe or are told a thing is going to happen with emotion, it will probably come to pass. In a hypnotic state, you are able, with the help of your hypnotist, to communicate with your subconscious mind. This is the part of your brain where most conditioning behavior is established. Through the help of positive suggestions, the mind can be reconditioned. As a result, in a conscious state it will be easier to realize what you want to do.
As an example, you may want to feel calm and collected when you take your exam, but are unable to do so. In your subconscious mind, there might be a conditioning factor that prevents you from staying calm and focused. When you replace that conditioning factor, it will be easy to make healthier choices about what you eat, how much you exercise, etc. and you will be able to see how easy it is to be in control of the test: to take the test, and not allow the test to take you!
WHAT CAN HYPNOSIS DO FOR YOU?
All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. Hypnosis can help you achieve something more easily and quickly by temporarily inactivating the protective guards to the subconscious mind, known as the ”critical factor,” or “gatekeeper.” This lets you communicate directly with your subconscious mind.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A HYPNOSIS SESSION?
During the hypnosis session, usually you are taught to relax the body and mind. In a hypnotic state you can then communicate with your subconscious mind. The hypnotist helps you in this process and makes the positive new conditioning suggestions. You are always in control at any time during hypnotic trance. It is your choice to enter a hypnotic state and you can choose to terminate it at any time. It is completely safe and temporary. Hypnosis is not in any way harmful and in a hypnotic trance you would not do or say anything that violates your values. A person in hypnosis cannot be made to do or say things that s/he normally finds unacceptable.
CAN YOU BE HYPNOTIZED?
Everyone can be hypnotized…unless you don’t want to be. It is a voluntary process. You may be thinking, “I’m a control freak! I have a strong mind! I’m stubborn! No one can hypnotize me!” Well, you have probably already been hypnotized. Inadvertently, you’ve probably hypnotized yourself! Ask yourself these questions: Have you ever
• been so engrossed in a book that when someone called your name you did not hear him or her? Then when you did hear, the voice seemed far away, unimportant, and irrelevant to the world you were in?
• driven to your destination and then wondered how you got there?
• concentrated on a project with such focus that you didn’t hear the doorbell or the telephone? Deep absorption in the task at hand and time distortion are both indications of hypnosis.
• watched television or a movie with such intensity that you felt part
of the action?
• stared into a fireplace and found yourself mesmerized?
The essence of hypnosis is your intense concentration on one thing to the exclusion of all else.
HOW IS HYPNOSIS SCIENTIFICALLY VALIDATED?
Every culture has used hypnosis in one form or another. In some traditional cultures rhythmic, monotonous drums and dancing are hypnotic. For other cultures, it is chanting and focusing on a candle to become mesmerized. And for others, it is rituals, prayer, movement or even stillness promoting a trance state. Sigmund Freud, Karl Jung and Milton Erickson were interested in hypnosis very early in their careers. Freud observed patients entering a hypnotic state and began to recognize the existence of the subconscious mind. He was the first to recognize the subconscious mind as a major source of psychopathology.
Beginning in the 1950s, hypnosis experienced a high as researchers found new and potent uses for it in therapy. The trance state is now being recognized as a highly effective scientific tool for modifying behavior and for healing purposes. Even the famous Mayo Clinic
saw tens of thousands of patients and treated them with hypnosis.
HOW MANY HYPNOSIS SESSIONS DO YOU NEED?
Some people need more sessions or longer sessions to achieve the required results. It depends on how much you are willing to trust the process. Positive suggestions to the subconscious mind will only produce long-lasting results if they are repeated several times and practiced in between, preferably using a recorded session. With each session you learn the tools necessary to achieve the results you seek.
At TEST PREP NEW YORK, we recommend 2-5 sessions.
CAN YOU LEARN SELF-HYPNOSIS?
Absolutely. After your instruction sessions, you can continue with self-hypnosis. In fact, you are usually already doing that in your daily life in some ways. Have you ever sat before a crackling fire and found yourself “mesmerized” by the dance and flicker of the flames? Then discovered that you were no longer blinking and that your body felt heavy and somehow a little distant? Or have you ever been driving late at night, tired, lulled into an unusual lethargy, and stared at the white lines on the road, and then suddenly have the illusion that your car is standing still and the white lines are flashing past?
Almost everybody has experienced self-hypnosis in one form or another. This unique form of self-hypnosis should help you achieve ultimate success if you use it on a daily basis. Think of it. All it takes is 10 to 20 minutes daily to achieve success on the test, but you learn the tools for a lifetime of success.
WHAT THE PRESS SAYS ABOUT HYPNOSIS
• “The easiest way to break bad habits is through hypnosis.” Newsweek
• “Hypnosis gives you more confidence.” Psychology Today
• “U.S. Olympic athletes use hypnosis to win.” Detroit Free Press
• “About the mind/body connection, hypnotherapy provides a tool to document it. Hypnotherapy helps patients tap their bodies’ own power to heal, and relieve pain.”
U.S. News and World Report
• “Numerous scientific studies have emerged in recent years showing that the hypnotized mind can exert a real and powerful effect on the body.” The Wall Street Journal
• “Though often denigrated as fakery or wishful thinking, hypnosis has been shown to be a real phenomenon with a variety of therapeutic uses – especially in controlling pain.” Scientific American
• “The greatest success in providing lasting change occurred with hypnosis (93% recover), followed by behavior therapy (72% recovery), and then psychotherapy (38% recover).” (Volume 7, Number 1, Alfred A. Barrios, PhD) Psychotherapy Magazine
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