Managing Test Anxiety: Strategies From a Therapist

Test anxiety is common for those studying for the actuarial exams, and it can make it difficult to stay focused, prepare, and perform. Test takers sometimes struggle with freezing during the exam and feeling overwhelmed by the length of the process and the uncertainty of passing.

I’m a licensed therapist with 15 years of experience working with people managing anxiety and other mental health concerns, and the Coaching Actuaries staff asked me to offer some reflections and strategies that might help to better understand and reduce the negative impact of test-taking anxiety.

How Can We Recognize Anxiety?

Anxiety is a cascade of physical and cognitive reactions that occur when our brains interpret something as a threat. Common experiences of anxiety include constant worries that we find difficult to control and an inability to act effectively as a result. Physical symptoms can include upset stomach and digestive problems, feelings of tension or pain, headaches, and difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep.

Cognitive and emotional symptoms can include feelings of overwhelm, being very emotional or, conversely, emotionally numb, and catastrophizing thoughts about how one bad outcome will result in complete failure. Some people experiencing anxiety may feel disconnected from their bodies, like they’re in a dream or watching themselves from outside. Others may have panic attacks, which can be very frightening, confusing, or embarrassing.

Behavioral symptoms can include the common “fight or flight” responses, such as irritability, aggressiveness, or avoidance. Added to “fight or flight” should be “freeze,” a tendency to feel paralyzed when action matters most.

What Does Anxiety Do for Us?

While anxiety can cause a lot of problems and discomfort, it might help to remember what its purpose is in the first place. What we call anxiety is a system designed to keep us alive when faced with a threat. Over the course of human history, most of those threats have taken the form of an enemy or a predator. Anxiety in modern life can feel mismatched to the moment and the task at hand.

For example, part of the reason anxiety often results in stomach upset is because the brain—interpreting a threat in its most evolutionarily ancient parts—is diverting blood and other resources away from the digestive system and toward large muscle groups. The priority is on running away or fighting, not digesting dinner. But stomach upset and an increased heart rate aren’t necessarily helpful to us when what we need to do is sit down and study.

Anxiety at its best in today’s world can do two things for us: it can be an important source of information about our inner life and, when harnessed well, it can motivate us to act.

What Anxiety Can Tell Us

Imagine anxiety as a source of information. If we can be curious and interrogate our anxious thoughts and feelings, it might reveal something about our priorities, the balance (or imbalance) in our lives, or other areas that need attention.

Anxiety as a Habit

Some of us have become so accustomed to anxiety that it becomes a habit—one that can be hard, or even frightening, to break. “If I let go of this anxiety, how will I know that I will keep improving?” is a question I’ve heard from clients. Realizing that anxiety has become a habit is important information, too—once we recognize the habit, we can begin to change it.

Harnessing Anxiety for Action

Essentially, anxiety is a call to action. When we recognize that we feel anxious about achieving something, the best solution is to find a way to act effectively to move toward our goal. One obstacle is that anxiety often makes us want to avoid the very thing that stimulates it. Yet avoidance makes both the outcome and our anxious feelings worse.

Building a Tolerance to Anxiety

When we can glean information from our anxiety about what we want and need, the next step is to begin to build a tolerance to those anxious feelings.

• Recognize and name anxious feelings: Locate them in your body. This awareness goes a long way toward managing those feelings. Example: “I feel anxious about the test and overwhelmed about studying. I feel it in my head and my chest.”
• Be curious: Take what useful information you can from how you feel. Example: “This is telling me that I don’t know how to relax, and I wonder what activities I might enjoy. I feel a lot of pressure from my family, and I’d like to figure out why. My self-worth is really tied to success in this, and I wonder what else I value about myself.”
• Decide which thoughts or feelings can be ignored: Managing anxiety is partly about identifying which thoughts and feelings aren’t useful—and turning away from them. Example: The thought, “I will fail and be humiliated,” does not help a test-taker study; put it away.
• Seek opportunities to elicit anxiety for practice: Some level of anxiety is a normal response to life, but we can become oversensitive to it. To build a tolerance, it may help to feel anxious more often, in different ways, and experience success anyway. Ideas: Take a public speaking class, try rock climbing, or work toward another goal that scares you a little bit.

When to Seek Help

When anxiety is keeping you from doing the things you want to do—whether academically, professionally, or personally—especially if it’s affecting your relationships, that’s a great time to talk to a professional. I’ve worked with clients whose anxiety severely limits their functioning, and others with mild anxiety who just want things to be a little better. For some people, medication is a game-changer—others simply need to figure out effective strategies.

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Erin Carter is a psychotherapist with experience working with individuals, couples, and families. Her training focuses on a postmodern approach that emphasizes solution-finding, drawing on clients’ strengths, and exploring new perspectives on life’s challenges. She is also trained as a Spanish-speaking therapist, with a passion for supporting families navigating the transition of immigration.

Her areas of interest include trauma, chronic pain, and personal growth. In addition to her clinical work, Erin serves as an adjunct instructor at Des Moines Area Community College, where she enjoys working with students and integrating evidence-based practices to enhance learning outcomes.