Dear Sha:

How about interrupting the negative thoughts with a hot bath.. or a cold shower (if it’s a hot season where you live), or a long walk outside, a swim every day in the public pool.. something like that?

anita

Hi Sha

I’ve also had anxiety around failing during my studies.

Where do you think this fear of failure is coming from? Is there a trigger?

Have you failed in your studies or anything else before? If so, how did it affect you?

Sometimes, I found that I needed to get used to a level of anxiety and try to study anyway. Sometimes the feeling went away while I was studying. Being in the best mood I could before trying to study was helpful for me as well as taking breaks.

Please show yourself some grace and compassion because ultimately, making mistakes is part of the learning process.

Wishing you all the best! ❤️🙏

Dear Sha:

“I don’t feel like studying even though I try to… Negative thoughts keep popping up, such as ‘You are going to fail even if you study,’ and I can’t concentrate… I’ve turned into a negative person, and I fear failure even when I study well. The trigger is every time I take a mock test, it feels like I haven’t studied efficiently (like I can’t recall or have forgotten what I studied), and looking at the competition for the exams, I start to think, ‘Nahh, you’re going to fail in this too.’ My career depends on this exam, but I can’t focus even when I need to.“-

– Naturally we don’t want to do what feels badly. And studying has been established, in your mind, as something that feels badly. When you look at a hot stove, you don’t want to place your hand on it because you know there’ll be pain, it’d feel badly, so you keep your hand away from the hot stove. Similarly, you keep your mind away from studying.. even when you try to study.

Naturally we are afraid of pain, physical and emotional, and failing the exams represent pain for you. Do you agree?

When we are afraid on an ongoing basis, aka being anxious, our cognitive functioning suffers, including our ability to concentrate and remember.

Can you tell me in regard to your career, how do you view your career: is it something you want to do, something you look forward to be doing for years to come?

And if you fail your exams, what would the consequences be?

anita

Dear Sha:

“Now everything seems to be lagging behind. This is the career I dreamed about. I don’t have any backup plans if I fail in these exams, and this makes me more anxious. If I fail in this exam, I’ll have to wait another year for it and find some part-time work (I still don’t know exactly what to do).“-

– The first thing to do is to lower and manage your anxiety so that your ability, while studying, to focus on the subject matter, process the information and commit it to memory significantly improves.

To lower and manage your anxiety, (1) Accept the possibility that you may fail the exams, wait a year for the next exams, and work part-time during the waiting-period. Accept this not a disaster, but an inconvenience. Consider the possibility that good things can happen during the year, such as that you might enjoy the part-time job.

(2) Commit to a study daily routine that includes some kind of exercise before studying, and/ or during breaks from studying, a yoga practice, and/ or listening to calming guided meditations (theme: mindfulness). When you are studying and feeling a spike in  your anxiety, get up, walk around, take a few slow breaths, slow down on the exhale, drink water, or herb tea.. take a cold shower, or a hot bath, listen to calming music.. and go back to studying.

How does this sound to you?

anita

Dear Sha:

You are welcome. You are welcome to post again before your exams, anytime you’d like to share about your struggles and successes and receive my input.

anita