Negative thoughts and sadness - Psychologist discusses; for school, college and beyond

[@Sushil151]

Really helpful. Thank you for this upload. :)

[@emilygambles5396]

Sometimes I don’t know what to do. Especially test preparation, the negative thoughts have a big wall, I am panicking and I can’t control it in this moment until it goes away. Do you have some advice?

[@excelinexams1056]

EmilyGambles thank you for your question. You feel the way that many others feel. In a nutshell, the easiest way is to embed some words and phrases into your revision/study preparation first. After your have written your summary notes, create a bit of an index page of your summarised information. You can do it visually, similar to a flow chart with drop boxes. For example, if you are studying Geography and the topic is Rivers, underneath Rivers, write one or two key words to refer to the sub topics in Rivers, and then some key words to refer to sub sub topics. Draw them out as a diagram. Then you memorise the diagram. You can also add in symbols and pictures if it helps to remember things. This means that the night before or the morning of preparation for your test or exam, you use the Index diagram to remind yourself that, actually, you do know loads of stuff and you imagine in your mind the drop down menus of information that relate to various key words - just like little triggers. It is very difficult to control anxiety when it takes too much of a hold, like in a panic. By that time, the only thing that you can do is to focus on something completely different, like your fingernails or a spot on the floor or wall and focus on bringing your breathing and heart rate down. However, by having your Index diagram done beforehand, it is a visual cue for your memory that you really do know stuff and will help build your confidence. Good luck :)

[@emilygambles5396]

@@excelinexams1056 I am really thankful for this advice. I am trying to work on my confidence, because mostly i think i can not do it. :)