What's your body doing?

Let’s start out with this rule of thumb: 

When you are thinking of of an upcoming test (or anything else in the future), remember to breathe.

Here’s a very common experience for test-takers:  “My test is next Tuesday (or tomorrow). YIKES!” Your heart rate goes up, your blood starts rushing, your stomach wrenches. You know the routine.

I don’t know about you, but often, when I’m thinking about something that I have coming up later today or tomorrow or next week (and it doesn’t have to be as stressful as a test), I find myself getting a little amped up. What do I mean by “amped up”? 

When I check in with my body while I’m thinking about what I have to do, I do notice that maybe my heartbeat has speeded up, maybe a little sweat is breaking on my upper lip or my legs feel a little twitchy. What’s going on here? I think of it as launching myself into the future. As if I were a cannonball on my way to whatever the future event is, I’m speeding through the air, only to explode on the other end.

“Amped up” or “worked up” – whatever you call it –  it’s not a comfortable feeling. Some people think it’s energy that’s preparing you for the event. Yes, that’s true– to a point. But chances are you are simply getting a bit anxious—thinking about something that hasn’t happened yet and imagining all the possible scenarios and outcomes (how come most of those tend to be not-so-positive?)  While we can’t control what thoughts come to us—try not thinking about the test you have to take next week—we can, while having the thought about the future, stay calm.

The simplest way?  Just breathe. You notice you’re thinking about the test, you notice your stomach starts to knot up.  Stop. Breathe deeply down to your belly. Ground your feet on the floor. Open up your senses to what is around you right now. The future event (that pesky test) won’t go away, but all those anxious feelings will. And wouldn’t that be a relief?

Remember: it’s a 3 legged stool. Your mind-leg takes over and throws your body-leg and spirit-leg out of balance. Get back in touch with your body. I’ll talk about getting back in touch with your spirit in another post.

Let me know your experiences with getting “amped up”. What happens to do? What do you do for relief?

Anxiety: where are you feeling it?

This week I had an experience I’d like to tell you about.

I have a summer engagement working with professional actors who are recording the voices to a well-known video game.

In the middle of one of the recording sessions I found myself starting to worry about something. What I was worrying about isn’t the point here. The point is I was…

in the middle of an important job that required a high degree of focus and suddenly I became distracted.

At that moment, I noticed that my legs were feeling like they wanted to run away!  So I used the calming tools– I took a good deep breath and I grounded my feet on the floor. Instantly, the worrying thoughts went away and I was able to get back on track and give my full attention to my work.

How does this apply to you?  The next time you feel anxious I suggest that you look immediately to your body and ask yourself “Where am I feeling the anxiety, right now?” As soon as you recognize which part of your body is tense or unsettled, breathe deeply and ground that area.  “Grounding” doesn’t mean you have to touch the ground.  It means that you make a conscious intention to release whatever tension or stress you are feeling in that part of your body and you let it go, as it is releasing it down into the ground.  Example: say you’re reading a test prep book and you start thinking, “I’ll never get this, I won’t get a good SAT score,” and you start feeling anxious about your future. Stop!  Notice where you are having an unsettled or tense feeling in your body. You might realize you are clenching your fists,  or tightening your jaw.  Good!  Awareness is always the first step towards change.  Now, apply the tools: breathe (deeply down to your belly), and ground (open up your hands, let your fingers relax; let your jaw go)..

You’ll be amazed at what you discover when you pay attention to what your body is doing when you feel anxious. We confuse the thought we are having with the feeling. Remember: thoughts create feelings. In other words: if you have an “anxious thought” it’s going to make an anxious feeling somewhere in your body. Locate it.  Calm it down.  You’ll see that the anxious thought will just disappear.

Let me know about your discoveries.

An example of this is when we become distracted by our own old fears. I can’t handle this, I’m not good enough, I can’t keep it together…and other negative thinking. “Negative” here means minus-ing, taking away from.  But taking

away from what? When we’re thinking negatively about ourselves we’re taking away from our whole, positive, highest self.

Most of us are fed terribly negative messages about ourselves through our competitive schooling, though the media, through advertising– you name it. We buy into the message I’m not good enough. And then we start to believe it and, like any self-fulfilling prophecy, it comes true.  But it’s not the truth.

Here’s the truth:  you are already your best, positive, highest self.  You have all the potential in the universe. You actually don’t have to do anything at all except support it rather than take away from it.

When you start thinking negatively about yourself don’t get distracted and pulled into that undertow. As soon as you realize you’re thinking that way, stop, plant both feet firmly on the ground, breathe out, and remind yourself of who you really are: your bright, shining, best self,  the one who can make a positive contribution to society.    

The best kept secret is this: you are already that great being.  Put your focus on that.

You owe it to yourself and to everyone– your family, friends and community — to be the great being you already are. Get the negative thinking out of your way.

Are you tense?

At a recent lecture I gave at the University of California San Francisco medical school, I was teaching the first year students how to use the calming tools:  breathing, grounding and sensing.

Breathing is by far the most important of all 9 tools in the performance model. So much has been said and written about breathing, and no wonder!  When we don’t breathe regularly it causes all sorts of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual problems.

After we worked on grounding, one of the students had a brilliant observation.  First, to remind you:

grounding means two things:  (1) feeling your feet on the floor and, if you are sitting, your body supported by the chair; and (2) releasing physical tension.

After practicing these two parts of grounding with the medical students one of them asked:  “Is the point of this that you don’t introduce tension into your system?”

This was a great realization: that we actually introduce tension into our systems by not grounding– by tightening up our shoulders, or our legs, or our hands, or our feet, or any part of ourselves.

When you are holding your breath or making your body tense you are actually trying to escape. It’s like you’re saying on the inside “Let me out of here!”  (the “flight” of “fight or flight”) .  When you breathe and ground you are keeping your system free of tension. You are, in the language I like to use, connected. You are not trying to escape. You are present to do what has to be done. This is essential for taking tests.

Observe yourself:  whenever you have an anxious thought about anything just notice what’s going on in your body. You are certainly holding your breath and/or you are making some part of your body tense. You are introducing tension into your own system.  The medicine:  breathe and release the tension. Repeat the process as often as necessary.  Doctor’s orders!

Keep observing,  keep using the tools.   Let me know what you find out and how it helps you.

Cheating is not an option

The New York Times ran a story recently titled: Pressed to Show Progress, Educators Tamper with Test Scores. The article is about teachers supplying their students with test questions and in some cases, changing the answer sheets, all to raise their students’ scores.

Why would a teacher, a role model for his or her students, take such a drastic action?

The answer is clear:  “test stress.”

Testing in America– and in many countries around the world–is so stressful that teachers “feel their schools’ reputation, their livelihoods, their psychic meaning in life is at stake,” says Robert Schaeffer, of FairTest.

Something is  badly out of balance if teachers are cheating.  Testing should be formative– students should learn from the process– not just about the subject matter, but about themselves.  If they are learning that cheating is an option,  that is unacceptable– not just for the teachers doing it, but for our society that perpetrates such high-stakes, over-the-top stress to cause this to happen.

This should be a wake-up call to President Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to  take a good hard look at what testing is really doing to students, teachers and parents.  Before we get even further into this mess with more and more testing,  let’s ask the question: are we really measuring student achievement with all our tests or are we just giving people opportunities to find any means possible to get the highest scores?

Sadly, I believe it’s the latter.

Again, testing should be transformative. Students can learn how to be calm,. confident and focused when they take a test, and these skills will transfer over to any challenge in life.  Cheating does none of that and worse.

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.

What do you do when this negativity surfaces? You may try to ignore it or hide it. You don’t want others to know you feel “less than”– after all, everyone else seems to be doing so well. So you’re humiliated, thinking there’s something wrong with you. Stop. Let’s start right here. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re having a confidence crisis. No more. No less.

“Confidence” is made up of two root words: “con” which means “with” and “fidence” which comes from the Latin that means faith, loyalty, fidelity, belief in, trust. When we lack confidence we don’t believe in ourselves.

The first tool for dealing with this is to confide the negativity. Tell a friend, a parent, a teacher, a counselor. If no one is readily available, confide in your higher self. Why is this necessary? Because if you keep all the negativity stuffed inside of you it just builds up and makes you feel worse.  You need to release it, let it out. Only then can you make space for something else — something positive –  to come in. In other words, don’t expect the negativity will just go away on its own. Let it out, let it go. Next, your confidant will reflect back to you something accurate and positive about you –something they know to be true (”You have handled difficult situations before,” “You can figure this out,” etc.).  The reflection from the positive mirror is essential because up till now you are glued to the negative side. You need to get out of the grips of the negativity and receive a different message.  Once you’ve done that you are ready for the third tool –   envision taking small manageable steps, successfully, to correct the original negativity. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine each small step that you can take and see yourself taking them.

Say you’re facing a chemistry final next week. You think “No way, I can’t handle this.” That negativity can quickly mushroom and engulf you. As soon as you recognize you are going in that direction, use the tools (1) Confide: tell someone you trust, someone who believes in you, someone who has confidence in you, that you are having this negativity.  (2) Reflect: they will give you an accurate, positive message back (”You have taken on hard subjects and done well; you can do that with chemistry.”  Listen to this message, take it in. (Remember to breathe!).  (3) Envision the small manageable steps you need to take to get back on track. See yourself breathing, grounding, organizing your materials, reading through the first section of the first chapter. Whatever the small steps are for you. Once you recognize that any task can be broken down into small manageable steps, and you can see yourself taking each one successfully, you are moving in a positive direction. Confidence is regained in a steady and methodical manner.

Is there a challenge facing you right now that you don’t think you are up to? Let me know what it is. The tools are available for everyone, all the time.

Stop pulling your hair out!

Here’s a quick and vital tip:  when you are feeling stressed pay attention to your body.

Much of what we think of as stress is exactly that, thinking.  We start worrying about something that hasn’t yet happened (like an upcoming test) or fretting over something that has already passed (like the answers we put on the test this morning– Did I circle a or b?!).  As soon as this kind of thinking kicks in we start amping up.  We begin feeling anxious.

So here’s the tip:  the feeling is just that, a feeling, something that’s going on in our bodies. Yes, it might be

tripped off by a thought, but because we’re such a dynamic system (body/mind/spirit) one quickly triggers the next.

Pay attention to your body means just that. When you are feeling stressed ask yourself where is this going on in my body? Is your gut tight? Are your shoulders hiked up? Is your fist clenched? When you ask the question and pay attention you’ll quickly get to the place where you are making yourself feel stressed.

The thought is just a thought. Thoughts comes and go.  Come and go.  It’s what we do with them– particularly how we physicalize them without even realizing– that make us feel stressed.

And once you’ve located the place your tensing up:  use the 3 tools for calming down:  breathing, grounding  and sensing. It’s all in Chapter 4: Calm Down.  You can do it.  You just have to do it.

Send me your challenges… and stories.

How often I hear this from students, teachers and parents.  And how often I think this myself!

From students it’s about homework, assignments, tests, keeping up with the schedule, all those after school and extra curricular activities. Pile it on!   Parents and teachers have their own litanies.

I get the feeling pretty often that most of us are stressed out most of the time! Or, to be more exact…

all of us get stressed out some of the time.

True, each of us has an every growing to-do list of things that we need to do, or should have done. We need to meet deadlines and others’ expectations, not to mention all the goals we set for ourselves.

But along with all of this comes the line: “It shouldn’t be so hard.”

And that, I believe, is what really causes us to feel stressed out.  Why? Because when we say that, or believe it, we are not taking life as it is, and instead are wishing, wanting, hoping it would or could be different.  That’s what I call “disconnection.”

In the book I talk a lot about stress being a function of disconnection.  Here’s what I mean: yes, that to-do list has all sorts of stressors embedded in it, but they are not causing the stress. After all, a test is just a piece of paper with the letters “t-e-s-t” on top.

The test is not making you feel stressed out. (It’s just a piece of paper!).  What’s really making you stressed out is that you disconnect from what you need to do (answer the questions) with the thought “It shouldn’t be so hard.”    That’s like being in a river and trying to jump out of it. The river is flowing (the test is going on), better you should swim with the current than fight it.

I wonder sometimes where we get the idea “It shouldn’t be so hard.”  I’m sure this is a complex question and subject, but in an era where you can get information about anything in a matter of mere nano-seconds, where you don’t have to leave your couch to shop, where you can watch four television programs at once, everything seems to be so easy.

Well, truth is, life is a series of tests and challenges—specifically to help us to grow, to be stronger, to become who we are meant to be.  And this means life, and all its tests, is hard sometimes.

Better to jump in, keep your eye on the ball, play the game, toil and sweat, and come out all the stronger, clearer, more determined to serve the world.

So when you think “It shouldn’t be so hard,” listen to the other inner voice and you’ll hear something quite different:

“You can handle it.”

And you can. moment-by moment.

Let me know when you feel things shouldn’t be so hard, and what you do about it.

Los Angeles Public Library Main Branch

Albert Johnson, Senior Librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library, spearheaded the purchase of 498 copies of The Workbook for Test Success, for the LA Library system. 73 copies went to the different branches, and 425 were given away to middle school students at motivational events hosted by the library.  Mr. Johnson wrote a glowing letter of recommendation to other librarians

across the country and we quote it here in full….

To Whom It May Concern:

As the Senior Librarian for the Young Adult Department for the last fifteen years, I am always looking for good books that teens can relate to.  In self-help I want books that offer concrete tools and are written in a style that young adults will find engaging and inspiring.

Last fall I read Dr. Ben Bernstein’s book The Workbook for Test Success: How to Be Calm, Confident and Focused on Any Test. This is one of the most helpful books for students I’ve come across in a long time. In fact, I spearheaded the purchase of the book, through the Los Angeles Library Foundation, for all 73 branch libraries in the Los Angeles Public Library system as well as an additional 425 copies to be given to students at motivational seminar events we offer.

Dr. Bernstein’s book gives readers the experience of being guided by a top-notch coach thoroughly familiar with test anxiety and test performance. On each page Dr, Bernstein comes across as clear, helpful, empathetic and strong.  Your confidence grows as you read the book; you feel Dr. Bernstein wants you to succeed.

Every book on the test prep shelves is about test content (subject matter, answering strategies, etc.). This book is about test takers and speaks specifically to their needs. Bernstein shares examples, exercises, tools and tips in a methodical and thoughtful manner. There’s a chapter for teachers and another for parents. The book is beautifully designed with meaningful, witty illustrations.

I highly recommend you consider this book for your collection and to give to students in community related events.  Consult also the reviews coming out on Amazon. They are all glowing.   I’m not surprised. Readers are reporting the book to be useful not only for tests but for daily living.

Bernstein’s book deserves national attention. It is only a matter of time till that happens.

Albert Johnson

Director, Young Adult Services       Los Angeles Public Library

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