Are you all tied up?

As I write this I am in south India at an Ayurvedic retreat.  Ayurveda is the oldest system of healing arts known to man. It dates back thousands of years to the writing of the Vedas, or ancient texts.

One of the pillars of this remarkably comprehensive and far-reaching system is to establish and maintain balance of body, mind and spirit. Since this corresponds so directly with the work I do as a stress psychologist I want to take a moment, at year’s end, review this foundational aspect of good health.  Let’s start out with 

thinking of yourself as a team of three players.  They are called your body, your mind and your spirit. Your body is easy to recognize: it’s your blood and guts, flesh and bones.  Mind is a big word and harder to define. Let’s limit our understanding of “mind” right now to the part of you that comments on yourself (“I’m OK, I’m terrible, I can do this, I’ll never get anything right”). Spirit is the most elusive of the three, yet it is, on our “team of 3”, a player of equal importance. Let’s view spirit as the force that defines your goals and drives you to achieve them.

The model for balance

For an easy visual, consider your team of three like a 3-legged stool: one leg each for body, mind and spirit. When all three legs are equally strong the stool is a sturdy, dependable platform (elephants stand on it at the circus!). But when one of the legs is weak or shorter there is instability and inequilibrium. Not only does the platform give way, but a “shortness” in one leg will effect the other two.  If you are feverish (body), chances are you won’t be able to think straight (mind), and you won’t have much oomph to do anything (spirit).  To function as a winning team you need all three players to be in top form:  strong, robust and cooperating.

Of the three legs, the one we tend to undervalue and pay least attention to is our spirit.  There are two basic reasons for this: we can’t see it, and we negatively associate it with “religion.”  Both reasons are based on faulty premises. Briefly, what I mean is this: over several hundred years, western science has done a good job of convincing us that what we can’t see is not real; and a common belief is that religion is nothing more than a set of rules to which one becomes a mindless slave.

While this is neither the time nor place for a complicated discourse (“It’s New Year’s Eve, Dr. B!), I’d recommend we consider making a new year’s resolution to pay more attention to our spirit. That means taking time to reflect, to quiet down, to meditate and to consider where we are really going with our lives and where we want to go.  It’s easy to get all tied up, but that always leads to imbalance, discomfort and ultimately disease.  Without spirit we would be robots. So if you’re feeling robotic about your life it’s a sure sign that your spirit needs to be rejuvenated.

The word “spirit,” after all, comes from the Latin inspirare, which also means to breathe. When we breathe, the circle is complete: our body relaxes, our mind calms down, and our spirit can fulfill its direction, which ultimately is to be a healthy, balanced, giving member of society.

Richard Wyne and Nora

At the Apple store in Seattle I got into an interesting conversation with Richard Wyne, from Whistler, B.C., Canada. Richard is the head of a company called Polar Solutions, which is in the business of disaster management and emergency preparedness.  They save people’s lives. Talk about stress and performance!. Locating and saving a person trapped in a building, or under an avalanche of snow requires the epitome of being calm, confident and focused.  I met Richard with his trusted partner, Nora, a Senior Avalanche Rescue Dog (German Shepard, Border Collie X). I would love to see them in action.  If your job requires you to keep stress at an optimal level let us know what it is.  I’d love to see Richard and Nora in action (check out their website), and the necessity for them to remain calm,confident and focused. Richard was interested in The Workbook for Test Success, and I look forward to sharing ideas an experiences with him, and with you. Tell us about your stress-related work.

The right answer? Strengthen yourself.

The Silicon Valley Mercury News today published an article today about the SAT and ACT. Author Purvy Mody starts off by saying “The words SAT and ACT can conjure anxiety for even the most academically confident student. Standardized testing has become so talked about and so prepared for that I have heard of fifth-graders enrolling in SAT prep classes — something I am highly against.”

5th graders prepping for the SAT?  AYK?  (are you kidding?)

Mody ends the article with this: “Take a class if you need the structure, or get the official books and practice on your own. Whatever method you use, the most important thing is that you do the work. The test will not take itself.” True enough, but columnist Mody is probably thinking “the work” means opening an SAT or ACT book and doing that work. In my coaching experience, learning the content is necessary but not the totality of test prep. The work is not just learning the content– the kinds of items, the subjects, and doing practice questions over and over again. It must include, and be thoroughly integrated with, the work you do on yourself.  Meaning, specifically, learning how to stay calm, confident and focused through the study and practice phases and then when you take the test itself.

You want a good, sturdy platform for your SAT or ACT performance. The platform for test success is the 3-legged stool: body, mind and spirit– being calm, confident and focused. Do that work and you’re well on the road to success.

Would you like to improve your test performance on the SAT or ACT?  If yes, let us know. We’re about to launch a training program that will give you the tools you really need to succeed. Send an email to us at testsuccess@sparkavenue.com.

Let prepping for SAT or ACT be an opportunity to cultivate and strengthen your calm, confidence and focus.

What happens is one word: practice.  He has to practice, practice, practice.  He has to practice becoming more aware of when he tenses his body and when he feeds himself negative thoughts about himself. And he has to practice tools to reduce the stress and turns those unhelpful habits around.

As we spoke I remembered something I learned in one of the first meditation courses I took some 30 years ago. The teacher said, “The Dr. can give you a prescription, but if you just place the prescription on your altar and pray to it every day, and yet never take the medicine how can you ever get better?”  So it’s the case with this medicine — the ongoing, daily practice of becoming more aware of old habits and replacing them with new ones.

The day after our session the client emailed me about how much he got out of it. Then I remembered something my old analyst, a real Viennese psychiatrist, said to me on many occasions, “Ze proof is in ze pudding.”  Let’s see if he practices. One thing I am 100% certain of:  if he does, he will improve and his test scores will be just what he wants them to be: excellent.

On January 8 I was crossing the street in NYC and was hit, head-on, by a taxicab who was speeding through at light at 35 mph. Slam! 3,000 pounds of rock-hard steel rammed into the right side of my body. I flipped up onto the hood, smashed the front window and went flying through the air, landing on my back in the middle of Broadway.  Rushed to Bellevue Hospital trauma ICU and then several weeks in a rehab hospital in Vallejo, CA.

So that’s what I’ve been doing: dealing with severe fractures and with this “event” (let’s not call it “an accident”) that was truly life changing. I’m happy to say that I am so fortunate– to be alive, to not have had any spinal or head injuries, to not have had anything that required an operation. Severe fractures are very very painful, yes, and they heal. I’ve had great doctors, nurses and the most loving support from my wife and family and community of friends.

Talk about TESTS!  This was one of the biggest and hardest I’ve ever faced. I am going to blog about this event and its effect on me, and how doing the work of being calm, confident and focused — from the moment I was hit by the taxi — actually saved my life.

Stay tuned!

And thank you for being there.

Prepare yourself!

A blog post about preparing for the the US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE)  came through today. I’d like to analyze it a bit and add my two cents (quoting the post in italics)

The most straightforward strategy to do well at taking an exam is undoubtedly by just taking practice exams. It really is as approximate as you will get to taking the real examination. Whenever you only possess time to finish just one thing to get ready for…your exam date, go through a practice test.

Yes… but you need to prepare yourself in another way that’s not about the test items or the test structure or answering strategies. You need to prepare yourself to be calm, confident and focused when you are taking the test.

Exam study guides also are very helpful at showing examination taking methods and eradicating some of the unknown encompassing taking standardized exams. It is really critical to test a range of study materials as some test takers will learn much better from a particular study guide than a different one.

Yes…  but in my experience all the study guides won’t help you if you don’t monitor your breathing, watch how you start feeding yourself negative sentences about yourself, or keep getting distracted by your anxiety and “worst case scenarios” as you are answering questions.  In other words, you need to be calm, confident and focused.

An enormous pile of examination study materials will not be any real help if you don’t actually make use of them. Be certain that you have an adequate amount of time scheduled to prepare for your examination.
And here I would add that having “an adequate amount of time scheduled to prepare for your examination” must, as in must include preparing yourself — not only the material. You can learn how you keep yourself calm before, during (and after!) the test; you can train yourself to keep your confidence up, and you can immediately know how to get back on track if you start becoming distracted (when you are studying and when you are taking the test).

So the best strategy for test anxiety is:  take practice tests while you are building a foundation in your body, mind and spirit to be… (altogether now…) calm, confident and focused.  This isn’t an idea.  It’s a practice.

Start practicing now. There are separate chapters in The Workbook for Test Success on staying calm, remaining confident and being focused.  Let me know your issues with these so I can respond to them.

As a famous sage once said, “If not now, when?”

Worrying? Again?

Do you find yourself worrying about an upcoming test? Or, when you are in the middle of an exam answering questions, are you worrying then?

The first thing to know is that it’s normal. Just about everyone worries from time to time.

Second, know this: worrying never solves anything. Anything.  Worrying just breeds more worrying.  Haven’t you noticed that when you continue to worry

about something the worries just seem to grow and grow?

Also,  we often worry about things that never even come to pass. Have you ever worried that something would turn out one way and — as it happened– it turned out completely differently?  Most of us have had this experience– more than once. It’s common for test takers.  You worry about what’s going to be on a test and then, come test time, it’s not on the test.

The most helpful coaching I give to people who worry is this: when you start worrying, stop!  See a stop light, a stop sign, a hand go up, an alarm bell go off. Just stop the worrying. Take a deep breath. Ask yourself, “Is this worrying going to take me to my goal?”  The answer is “No!”  Next, listen– listen to the voice inside of you that’s going to tell you the next helpful action to take (“Get back to the books– keep reading the section you were working on”).  And then, fulfill the direction of the voice… do it!

It’s the best cure for worrying.

The teacher, Steve Shramko, works at the Eastside Adult Education Program in San Jose, and has, over the years, recognized the need for material– “a curriculum” — that addresses the test taker, not just the test content.  “This is exactly what we need,”  Steve said, referring to the book.

Steve and I had an animated conversation, especially about how testing is disembodying and disempowering. “Students, especially ones who under-perform,” Steve said, “go into tests believing they are going to fail. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.  We need to turn that around.”  He immediately saw the relevance of engaging the spirit (focus) as well as the body (calm) and mind (confidence).

It is highly encouraging when an experienced educator sees the book as “the missing link.”  Thank you Steve Shramko! I see the workbook in the hands of students who can use the help through educators like Steve.

When I speak around the country I’m often asked to give some “quick tips.”  I’ve come to equate this term with “magic bullet”– in other words, “tell me something I can do right now to take away my anxiety,” “give me a pill, doc.”

There are two problems with that way of thinking: the first is that if you do something it’s just for “right now” and the second is the notion that something or someone can “take away” your anxiety.

i believe it’s better if you understand that your test anxiety is a habit– I want to say “just a habit”, but don’t want you think I’m minimizing it with “just”– but that’s what it is, a habit. In other words, you’ve built up a certain reaction to tests and that reaction is anxiety.  Every time you hear the word “test” or think about a “test” or take a “test”…. here comes the anxiety. Your body, mind and spirit are all conditioned, or habituated, to behave in a certain way around tests. So, along with “test” comes all this stuff of anxiety: rapid heart beat, self-doubt, distraction.

One of the great things about habits is that they are learned, and– here’s the really good news– one habit can be replaced by anotherl. (I don’t like to use “good” and “bad” with habits– I think some habits are helpful and some aren’t). In general anxiety is not a helpful habit — some blood pumping and energy boosting before and during tests is good and even helpful– but when it goes into the anxiety zone it’s not helpful.

If you want to reduce your test anxiety you need to put new habits in place– habits that help you calm down, feel more confident, and stay focused. That’s what the workbook is all about. Yes, it’s a book filled with “tips”– but they are really new habits to be practiced and learned. They don’t take away the anxiety, they replace it. with calm, confidence and focus.

Imagine yourself as you would like to be and work in that direction.

Send me your comments and questions and tell me about the habits that aren’t helping you and  that you would like to replace.

The calm, confident and focused teacher

As the health care debate nears some resolution (at least for the time being), the legislative agenda is already setting its compass to point towards education. A lead article in the New York Times titled “Obama Calls for a Major Change in the Education Law,” the President and his Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan are calling for a re-visioning of No Child Left Behind.

(see referenced article link to ‘Major Change in Education Law’)

One of the key features of the new policy is the focus on teachers and how they teach.

Quoting the article: The administration’s proposals would also rework the law’s teacher-quality provisions by requiring states to develop evaluation procedures to distinguish effective instructors, partly based on whether their students are learning.

I read this to mean: teachers are going to be tested. Big time. I don’t mean…

that they’re going to be sat down with test booklets and scantrons, but their very work itself will be under the microscope and evaluated. The test for teachers is going to focus on two questions: how are teachers going their jobs, and  effective are they?  Certainly, student performance will be an indicator of teacher success, but there will be a great deal more attention to how teachers are instrumental in making that success happen… or not.   This doesn’t have to do only with “teaching to the test,” but the way teachers carry out their jobs.  Do they instill confidence in their students? Do they motivate them staying focused so they can succeed? Do they show them how to be calm and centered in the face of ongoing challenges?

It’s the same three legged stool: calm, confident and focused. It’s the same platform for successful performance, whether you are a teacher, a student, a politician, an opera singer, or a pro athlete.

When a teacher is calm, confident and focused he or she radiates the qualities that every student needs to succeed.

Everyone wants to succeed. Everyone can learn to be calm, confident and focused. Our teachers light that light inside of each of us.