Just as anxiety can stop us studying, enjoyment can move us along.
Switching from an anxiety causing activity to an enjoyable one may be a
valuable step in breaking away from an anxiety that is preventing us from
study. When self-confidence is restored, we can look again at the anxiety
raising area, to see if there are ways to approach it positively.
One positive way to deal with anxiety is to look for a way to enjoy the
subject that is causing anxiety:
Writing and mathematics, for example, are
very broad areas.
Preparing an essay in a required style may be
freezing
you into inactivity, but perhaps there are ways you can write about the
subject that do not freeze you, even that you enjoy? If you can get
something onto paper, you will have something to work into the required
style later.
If statistics is terrifying you, maybe there are
other
terrified students you would enjoy working with? Meeting together to
discuss the meanings of the statistical terms and to try some of the
exercise may prove to be fun. If not, try another way.
Any solution to the problems of anxiety is going to be personal to the
person who finds it, but anxiety problems are a common feature of academic
work, so should not make us believe we are different from other people, or
that we have a problem that cannot be resolved.