ACT Prep: How Meditation Can Help with the ACT, SAT, and Other Tests

Anybody who has ever gone to school knows the feeling of panic, anxiety, and discomfort that comes before taking a test.

Unfortunately, some students are more familiar with it than others.

We’ve found, especially recently, that more and more students are battling test anxiety, and it’s a major roadblock preventing students from hitting not only their standardized testing goals but also from getting the grades they’ve worked so hard to achieve in their classes.

In reality, it’s not all that surprising – students nowadays are under an immense amount of pressure to succeed, competition to get into colleges and universities is at an all-time high, and social media adds fuel to the flames.

With all of these concerns and worries snowballing inside of a student’s head right before the test starts, students have asked us what they can do before a test to help put their nerves at ease, and the answer is simple.

Meditate.

A quick five-minute breather before walking into the test brings calm, focus on mindfulness into students’ lives and confront that little voice in their head that’s bringing up all of these concerns.

The key is to push that negative voice to the side and focus on the positive, the new thoughts, feelings, and perspectives that will contribute to a more stress-free test day.

We’ve already touched on simple breathing techniques that can help students calm down before tests, and meditation serves the same purpose as that, just with a little extra on top.

Realistically, if students were to get to the test five minutes earlier than they had originally planned on, spending five minutes in the care just breathing, focusing on inhaling and exhaling, will help put the mind at ease to focus on the task at hand instead of negative thoughts.

There are plenty of meditation apps available for free to download, and any one of them can lend a helping hand.

Additionally, we’re proud to announce that we’re now offering test anxiety prevention sessions at Mally A.C.T., led by a trained yoga and meditation instructor. It’s the same one-on-one, individualized approach that we have for the ACT, SAT, and academic coursework, just for test anxiety.

We’re on a mission to help make test anxiety a non-issue for students battling it day in and day out, and if you think your student would benefit from it, talk to one of our tutoring consultants today.