You’re feeling nauseous, you’re sweating excessively, and your heart is pounding.

You take out the materials needed to study for your tests but you simply cannot concentrate because that feeling of uneasiness envelops your whole body until nothing is left but your racing thoughts. When the day of the test finally catches up to you, you are left with nothing but negative thoughts. As you’re taking the test, you don’t understand why or how, but everything you’ve studied decided to disappear from your memory and you cannot remember anything at all. You begin to panic, and your panic transforms into something you can no longer control. You can’t breathe. You begin to shake.

That is the feeling of having test anxiety. It is this overarching terror that controls you and hinders you from succeeding. It’s this voice in your head telling you that no matter how hard you study, you’ll still fail. I was told by many that test anxiety doesn’t really exist, that it is merely a figment of my imagination that I have created as an excuse to keep myself from studying.

I wish that were true. I wish it could just be something I created in my head because then I could easily destroy that creation until I no longer have it. But test anxiety is real, and not just for me. Many experience this excruciating battle between their body and mind.

Test anxiety isn’t something you can easily get rid of. It's a great fear of failure that takes over you and doesn’t just go away in a blink of an eye. It takes time and patience. If you’re like me and you’re suffering with test anxiety, there are ways to manage it.

In preparing for tests, you should:

Talk to your professors and ask if they have any suggestions on how to study for the test.

Attend review sessions if they are given.

Review the material daily and clarify what you don’t understand.

Join a study group.

When taking the test and you feel the anxiety kicking in:

Fill your mind with pleasant thoughts—tell yourself that you’ll succeed and you’re doing just fine.

Mentally yell: “Stop!”

Remain focused—if you feel like you’ve been spending too much time on a particular question, accept that you won’t be able to answer them all and proceed to the next one.

Dealing with test anxiety has definitely been a hindrance for me in my college career and I’m certain others can relate. With test anxiety, it’s difficult to not feel disappointed when you fail and you begin to belittle yourself. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve called myself “stupid” and not worthy to be where I am. I’m still learning to cope with this, but it gets easier once you remind yourself of your worth. Test scores and grades don’t define who you are because you are worth so much more than a number on a piece of paper.