As far as I have confronted anxiety in my life, I believe it has been all my life since the time I can remember my childhood. Especially test or exam anxiety.  The only way is through is slightly overrated. I have several times succumbed to giving into the fear and failed certain class tests and quizzes in childhood which I still vividly remember being yelled at for screwing up the test. Anyways, the feeling of anxiety in my body feels like clammy feet and hands, fast paced breathing, shaking my feet or legs even sometimes, twisting in a chair, biting down on my jaw or teeth, and sometimes shallow breathing as well. The very first time I let go of my anxiety in the exam was when I stopped thinking about the cramming and let my mind do the work of solving the problem using creativity. This was in 4th grade science test. I let myself solve the problem in the moment using my imagination. It was about dust in clouds. I still remember. When I slowed down my breath, and let go of remembering the details and just thought of it as how do I best fill this page in an educated manner, I felt comfortable and confident in that mindset. It was a mindset shift that ultimately helped me gain agency in that situation. I let go of the thought to score more. I just needed to pass is all I cared about and actually even more than a 0. When I set that low expectation for myself, I was able to breathe. With that I got a start to explore creatively approaching the problem, took time to think about it and eventually bring out a solution that was intuitively close to what the book said. How I dont know till date. I trusted my intuition is all I can tell. I surrendered to the moment and let my brain do the work for me. That felt liberating and my body calmed down for the very first time in a test situation. Until then I’d get distracted, play or fidget with my pen and pencils during the test, look around and waste time, not solving the question at hand. This was when I really wanted to do something in the exam, I really wanted to understand why I did what I did. In a way, I took interest in the content. Leaning in definitely helped. Like I was not wasting time for my own good and that I genuinely created an opportunity to learn for myself. I truly wanted to get something out of that question is all I cared about. I told myself, if I do this question on my own and solve it the way I feel like doing, I would not discuss this question of the exam at the end of it with my friends. This helped me contain the nerves that comes from discussing answers after the exam and freaking myself out for mismatches in said answers across friends and classmates. Man that was the scariest times after exam discussions. Absolutely dont believe that is a good expression of your nerves. Let alone doing the exam was a nightmare, dealing with the after effects of discussing that nightmare, rehashing the entire thing is one more of a nightmare on its own. You can tell by now I’m not a fan of exams. Which is why I love social work — the only two times I had an exam were the LMSW and LCSW exams. 

For the LMSW exam, I took to a lot of strategies before and during the exam. I got heights of anxiety and I genuinely felt the nerves all the way from 15days before the exam to the day of. The ways I battled with nerves during the 15days was through meditation for at least 15mins before the exam. I consciously spent 15-20mins and the very first time was actually 25mins of meditation and that was much needed for the intensity of nerves I had. The meditation and the calming sounds in the guided meditation helped me. Till date, whenever I did therapy sessions or do my writing these days, I need a calming music playlist running in the background for me to ground myself in the moment. Tethering to the moment through my senses has always been my goto method – a sort of multi-sensory approach to grounding if you would. In the heights of my nerves, I pop my head out in the nature, trying to listen to nature sounds, like birds chirping, sounds of trees ruffling together their leaves in the wind if its a windy day, listening to people talk in the background nothing intelligible just knowing that I’m not alone and my kids playing whenever they are around. I have a cup of chai or hot water that calms me down with the sense of taste. If I come in to the home space and feel my nerves, I usually spray my rooms with a room freshener that calms me down as well. On my exam day, I wrote affirmations on my note pad for the exam – You got this! I’m safe! I have my family! I kept listening to a song on the speakers right before the exam that encouraged me throughout the exam to get through the nerves. It was an uplifting song – “Kutty story”. I kept playing that song in my head throughout the exam to calm myself down. Especially the line, “Life is very short nanba, always be happy”. That kept me going saying, life is very short so there’s no reason this exam is going to stop me from living it fully and happily. I wish I had these tools while I was a kid. I would have done better then before, during and after. This is how I got through my LCSW exam as well. 

Going through the feelings of nerves in my mind and body, the only way I took that out was to talk to myself too in a friendly manner. When I did that and brought a bit of humor to the situation, like I would with a friend, I’d say something like, “Evallavo pannitom idha pannamatoma”. Which means – We have handled so many things, we can do this too. This was more on the self affirmation and encouragement line of thought. I used to always talk to myself as a kid. With the pressures of getting good grades looming all around me, I always had to talk to myself so I felt content with the effort that I put in. I was always seen for the amount of effort that I put in. With that sincerity and acknowledgement from myself and the people around me, I felt confident that no matter the outcome I will do my best. I will show up and do the work no matter the outcome is something I told myself any day. This self talk was how I got through all my exams since middle school to high school. The positive self talk helped me throughout my board exams in high school. 

Speaking of board exams, I’ve never shied away from taking extra help like tutoring. I have never thought tutors were showing that I have a weakness. This was my segue into embracing my vulnerabilities in the times of milestones to be reached. I gladly accepted the help when I knew I could not handle the pressure alone. I did that even during my social work papers after every paper – I would sit with the tutor and review my paper – after my second paper the tutor was cruising with my paper reviews stating I’ve got the idea and I get the structure and language style with the host culture that makes sense. It felt rewarding to sit with her as my editor so to speak and get that affirmation that I was on the right track to check in my work. Taking help was easier I got older, I’ll admit. Until then I thought I had to have it all figure it out all by myself. Nah – that never worked. I knew I needed help even during my social science exams from my best friend, Archu who I used to sit with before my exams and debrief on almost every history chapter for memory jogging. That’s how I always got through social science exams. I would remember her words narrating the story and with the auditory walk through, I would bring myself in the exam to recollect those narratives. I was into people telling stories since a child. That was how I got this method to work for a tough memory recall of facts in exams. My grandma and mom used to narrate stories as I was a kid during meal times. That helped a ton to pick on these auditory methods. And in India all our teachers would narrate the content of the chapters of the book during class hours to condense it in digestible formats and taking effective notes comes from their environment of teaching. Reading through these notes before exams was the way I would prepare myself for the exam. I did this in all my tutoring sessions as well to take notes and prep from these notes. My friends loved my notes and would gladly copy from them a week before the exam. I felt good about my note taking from then on. Knowing that I could help myself like that enabled me to gain self confidence, especially around my board exams. 

I can’t say enough about preparation and adequacy of preparation for the exam. All said and done nerves need a quelling as they are there for a reason, like go do something about it. So my nerves have always told me there’s something more to do about the situation so let’s go figure out how to approach it. This was my way of motivating myself to prepare for the exam by studying my notes, my text books and debriefing with friends and tutors about questions I had before the exams like doubts in the topics or not understanding something, so I review them with friends, tutors and teachers. Reading through the material on my own was something I did at intervals of time right after the teacher or tutor had reviewed them for the very first time in class. When I read the material I would take notes then too, underline them and make sense of the material in my own words. This is how I made it my own. This is how I relate to the topic being reviewed. This is how I was able to remember the content as I was able to put it in my own words and understand and assimilate for myself. This method works for me till date.  This method helped me move away from cramming the content word for word. 

For long term board exam in high school sort of anxieties I wish I had this CBT toolbox next to me that I have these days. Essentially my goto is the dysfunctional thought record (https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/challenging-negative-thoughts) and I review them with myself using these questions of the thought that comes up to me in that situation that causes the issue of negativity. When my nerves take control of me, I take myself out of the social situation and into a private space. I sit down with my pen and paper or computer notes. I ask myself these questions of, 1. how will I speak to a  friend about this situation if they were going through it; 2. what is the worst case scenario that this situation will lead to the worst possible outcome that I’m imagining right now and what is probability or likelihood of that happening; 3. what is the best case scenario and the probability/ likelihood of that happening ; 4. Is this negativity that I’m thinking right now going to affect me significantly in a year from now or even 5years from now? What is the probability/likelihood of that happening. When I pin this down in a place for myself to reflect on as a problem solving tool, especially life decisions that I’ve faced, I feel confident I’ve given myself the ability to process this situation constructively rather than rush through it or wing it so to speak. 

Another tool that has been helpful is the DBT pros and cons tool. I lay down the pros and cons of the negative situation happening or not. First I need to apply the STOP skill to stop and reflect on the situation taking control. Like I did in my previous tool of CBT dysfunctional thought record, I put myself in a space that I calm for myself and take some time reflect. With that space, I jot down the list of pros for the situation going positively and cons for the situation going poorly. This way I become the observer or a 3rd party to my own situation and gives me factual data rather than subjective personalized feeling only data. 

The emotional regulation and distress tolerance tools of DBT helps me address the emotions side of the equation. Especially distracting myself with music or movies when I’m hyper stressed in a day. This way I address the thing of negativity with a fresh perspective when I’m relaxed. With me being relaxed after the distraction, after placing my negativity in a container all the while, I get  to addressing the emotions now with that space of clarity. I do yoga for 10-20mins so as to relax as well. I go on walks for close to an hour in nature to relax as well. These tools to help move my body and keep engaged in my mind, I feel lot more centered and grounded to approach my work. During work, I regulate myself (neuroception) using grounding music and the sound of my keys. I take micro-breaks every hour to stand up and stretch and walk around. I feel lot more connected with myself with these gentle movements throughout the day. For the emotional regulation, I process through checking the facts of the situation and seeing if my emotion fits the facts of the situation that is causing the negativity. I’m able to tell if that situation is justified to necessitate my emotional response. Once I list the facts of the situation and define my bodily sensations of the emotional response to conceptualize my feeling and how it feels in my body, I’m able to tell that this situation is causing my body to feel this specific way and that my mind is feeling nerves like this right now. For example, I feel a tightness in my chest or pressure in my head when I’m stressed or nervous. Once I bring gentle awareness to these bodily sensations, I’m able to say I stay mindful of my body. Even this gentle awareness being brought out helps me nudge myself to center myself. This is the method of DBT mindfulness technique. The movement and eating healthy aspects fall under the PLEASE skill of DBT (https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/dbt-emotion-regulation-skills).  Finally I challenge myself to look at the silver lining of the situation or even yet, something I learned in engineering days is, “It could be worse” mentality. This way I was able to push myself to do something about the situation that was causing the negativity. This gave me the ability to grow from the situation. When I say push myself, I actually try to do something about it. If it is a learning mechanism, I try to see what can I learn from this situation. This is what Mr Gifford says as leadership advice: try to identify what this situation is trying to teach you at this moment. I try to read articles or books in that topic that is causing the stress of the situation. When I find articles, I come up with keywords relating to the situation and simply search on the internet with a google search. With that I learn what articles match what I’m looking for. I research my way out of the situation to cognitively approach the problem in an educated manner. This is how I let my anxiety let me guide me into taking action about the situation. I feel this is a natural bodily response in me that I feel comfortable taking this route of solving my problems in life. It has helped me narrow things down to simplicity, in a constructive manner. The DBT opposite action tool has helped me to move away from isolation whenever I felt the need to retreat into solitude. I ensure I have a meetup with a friend or family member in the week so I don’t succumb to my bodily response to retreat in times of grief or sadness. Since the situation and my bodily response for the emotion of sadness doesn’t fit the facts of isolation, I push myself to do opposite action which is the opposite of isolation is socialization and I schedule the social meetups through the week – not too overboard, just enough to kick myself out of that pattern of isolation in sadness. This is how I deal with depression through my post divorce healing as well. This energy to interoception helps me acknowledge the human survival mechanism of finding strength in numbers to heal. This is something I learned from experiential therapy to tune into my heart and reach out to play with friends and family when in pain of attachment.