Symptoms of Text Anxiety

Test anxiety is a psychological condition. In such a situation a person experiences stress before, during, or after an assessment. This anxiety causes poor performance in the said assessments or can interfere with learning.

Symptoms of test anxiety can be broadly categorized into Physical or Psychosomatic, Behavioral, Cognitive and Emotional. Physical symptoms consists of headaches, nausea, stomach upsets, sweating, hyperventilation etc. Various behavioral symptoms can include pacing around, fidgeting, restlessness and similar responses. Cognitive symptoms comprise difficulty in focusing, in-coherent thinking, going blank etc. Finally, emotional symptoms can include feeling of fear or dread, depression and similar negative emotions.

What causes test anxiety?

There are various factors which lead to the development test anxiety. These include reasons like lack of preparation, poor studying habits etc. Many times, parental or peer pressure due to high expectations also leads to test anxiety. Previous negative experiences like fear of blanking out or the inability to perform in testing situations can also contribute to anticipatory test anxiety. Most reasons can all be traced back to one primary reason – Fear of failure or non-performance.

How do I deal with stress anxiety?

There are many things you can do to alleviate test anxiety. Make certain that you give yourself the time needed to properly prepare for an upcoming test or exam. On the day of the test, be sure to go into the room with a positive attitude. This will ensure you are not stressing over the test before you even see the questions on it. During the test, be sure to take short controlled breaths to calm you down during the course of the exam. These should relieve you of the symptoms.