Test Anxiety Exercises

Close your eyes. Relax your head one part at a time: ears, jaw, teeth, cheeks, chin, mouth, tongue, nose, eyes, forehead and scalp. Intentionally relax your entire face for a few minutes.  

Stress often produces pressure around the head.  By relaxing these "thinking centers," you will feel pleasant and calm.

Next time you are walking around, pay attention to your posture: push your chest forward, press your shoulders down and back, and lift up your chin just a bit.  Imagine yourself as a puppet being held up straight by strings.  Relax and breathe into this posture.  

When posture is good and you are not slouched, as one often is when stressed, your body will get more oxygen and feel more refreshed.  A good posture also helps you feel empowered and releases the constricted feeling often accompanied by stress.  

Close your eyes and breathe normally.  When breathing in, imagine you are breathing in power and good feeling.  You can imagine the power as a color or as light.  Breathe this way for 5-10 minutes.  

Every breath charges you like a charger does a phone and peaceful breathing relaxes the body.  

Close your eyes and breathe normally.  On each exhale imagine you are blowing out anxiety, bad feelings, stree and tenseness from your body: the thoughts that do not serve you leave your mind and body.  Do this exercise for 5-10 minutes.  

Concentrating on your breath has a calming effect and the visualizing exercise makes you feel lighter.

Close your eyes and think of a small cottage. Move towards the cottage.  Open the door and let your thoughts flow into the cottage.  Let them flow as pictures, colors and words.  When you're done, close the door and breathe deep three times.  Now, when you open the door, you can choose which thoughts to take with you and which to leave behind.  Remember to close the door before you leave.

Stress arises from thoughts that put a strain first on your mind and then the body.  By breaking free from thoughts that don't do you good, you give your mind and body rest and allow yourself to be more present.

Close your eyes, and begin relaxing your body, starting from your toes moving up to the soles of your feet, ankles, calves, thighs, lower abdomen, lungs, diaphram, back, neck face, forehead.  Focus on each part of your body until your whole body is relaxed.  Stay resting in this relaxation for 5-10 minutes.

By relaxing your body, you relieve tension and feel calmer.

When you feel overwhelmed by your work, stop everything for a minute and take a short walk.  You can go outside, but inside is just as good.  Breathing calmly, pay attention to your surroundings and your body's movements.

This will take your mind off your worries.  Allowing your mind a short break decreases feelings of chaos and lowers your stress levels.  You will see more clearly and will be able to work more effectively.

Close your eyes and let your mind wander to the different parts of your body; acknowledge how each part feels right now.  What thoughts are going through your head?  Observe, but do not analyze.  When you are connected to how your body feels, ask yourself: What is this feeling called?  Observe the feeling in peace and name it.  You can also ask yourself if there is a feeling behind the first one.  

By recognizing and naming your feelings you can begin to release tension from the ball of stress you may have built up side.  

Write down a list of things you are good at and you appreciate in yourself.  Take a moment to think of all the amazing aspects that make you.  Use this question for help in making this: if you were someone else, what about you would they envy?

When you acknowledge the good aspects about yourself, you enforce them and feel more complete and empowered.  If you only pay attention to the things you lack, you will feel incomplete and unsatisfied, adding to the feelings of stress.   

Close your eyes.  Imagine that in this instance, you can space travel: rising up from where you are, and seeing everything from above.  Imagine yourself rising so high that you can see the limits of the city, then the country, then the Earth.  

Everything getting smaller as you rise higher.  When you feel good, stop right there.  Look at the place where you just were.  How does everything look from up here?  How do you feel now looking on from a distance?  Stay in this space for 5-10 minutes, and then come down.  

From a distance things and situations start to look smaller: your negative reaction weakens.