Classroom Presentation 10

I am happy to here today to share with you “methods I learn from others to overcome anxiety symptoms”. In the following presentation, I will first introduce some common anxiety symptoms. Then, I will share with you some scenarios when I felt nervous. Lastly, I will tell you some effective ways to cope with anxiety symptoms that I have learned from my friends.

So, let’s begin now. What comes up to your mind when people talk about anxiety symptoms? The followings are some common anxiety symptoms. For instance, ranging from having difficulty in concentrating to poor sleeping quality are examples of anxiety symptoms. For me, I have experienced excessive fear or worry which lead to excessive sweating and even stomachache. Other people who suffered from anxiety may experience muscle tension, feeling constantly “on edge”, irritability or having difficulty in controlling feelings or worry, etc. the symptoms can be very diverse and somehow affect our daily life. However, these symptoms have given me signals to be more alert to my emotional well-being in these years.

You may be wondering when will a student feel anxious? I can tell you anxiety can arise at any time, especially before some big events or important tasks. For example, I felt anxious when I think of job hunting in the coming months. As a year 5 student, job hunting season is around the corner. However, as you all know, the current pandemic situation is worse than ever. The phenomenon of kindergartens' under-enrollment rate is skyrocketing. Many kindergartens have even closed permanently. It will be much more difficult for fresh graduate students teachers to find a job. Also, back then when I was in Year 4, I had my first face-to-face teaching practice. Due to the pandemic, my block practice in Year 3 has changed into… virtual mode. So, Year 4 was my first time really getting a chance to teach children in a classroom. I began to worry about my abilities before starting my teaching practice. As I remember, a week before the start of my teaching practice, I can hardly control my feelings of worrying or doubting myself, I imagined how everything I might mess up with. I even burst into tears in the toilets the night before. Moreover, I still get anxious when I sat in front of my computer, waiting for my GPA to be released. What if my results get poorer this time? What if I cannot keep up with my performances? Lastly, I realized that I was quite anxious when I was waiting for the RAT results recently. Luckily, the results of the tests were negative.

In the past, I don’t know how to deal with anxiety. I would just keep forcing myself not to think about this and not to think about that. Also, I would go to sleep when I felt anxious in the past, as sleep provides a temporary escape from reality. However, the feeling remains upon waking. Besides, long naps can adversely affect my sleeping quality at night. In addition, long naps made me keep procrastinating on important tasks. For instance, I was worried about the quality of my teaching plans and got stuck there and so I tried to take a nap first. However, the teaching plans remained not finished and I became even more anxious.

So, Until the start of the teaching practice in Year 4, I talked to one of my best friends, Kristina. It is because I knew that I may mentally break down if I don’t seek help from others. I found out that she had also suffered from anxiety before. Emotions as anxiety is also one of the emotions that everyone has, we shall learn how to get along well with anxiety rather than pushing anxiety away. She introduced to me two efficient self-help ways to overcome anxiety symptoms. The first way is to read books related to emotions. Thus, I can understand emotions and learn ways to cope with anxiety. The book shown on the PPT was my favorite all time. The author taught us to acknowledge the anxiety and just focus on finishing the current task without thinking how successful will the task turn out. It really changed my mindset, help me to stop procrastinating and free myself from endless anxious thoughts.

Another way is by writing a diary, I wrote down my feelings for that day. Also, I wrote down what am I worried about at that moment and several things that I was grateful for. This can help me to better understand my thoughts and feelings. From the diaries, I came to understand that most of the “worries” in my mind is overthinking! Most of them are uncontrollable, so I learned to let… go and just go with the flow. Besides, when I see the tons of things that, that I felt grateful for, I realized how lucky and happy I am!

This is the end of my presentation, thank you for listening.