You've read the text, you've taken notes, you've attended class regularly, but you're still suffering from test anxiety -- so, now what? Dr. Frank Lawlis, American Mensa's Supervisory Psychologist, best-selling author and two-discipline American Psychological Association Fellow, offers these testing tips:
• Breathing patterns are critical for higher achievement because of the need for oxygen fuel to the brain. Increase your brain's fuel by breathing in long breaths.
• Research has shown that a high-protein breakfast is essential to high performance; the best specific research used boiled eggs, but other high-protein foods are cheese, peanut butter and fish.
• The research is clear the act of chewing actually improves your memory and lowers your anxiety, so chew sugarless gum during the test or study session — if it's allowed, of course.
Lawlis says the biggest foe to smart thinking is anxiety; people tend to worry too much about the results of performance, and doubts and fears simply cut thinking power in half. Instead, focus on the process of problem-solving and not on the outcome. Also, according to Lawlis, intellectual performance is based on allowing your brain to do what it does best — solve problems; remember you are truly capable of doing anything you set out to do, if you enjoy the act of participating.
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