thinking about this one time my linear algebra prof was talking about this study that says the brain can’t tell the difference between anxiety and excitement so if you’re ever in a stressful situation ie taking an exam you can say to yourself “i’m so excited!” and it will make you perform significantly better in said situation. fast forward to about a month later, we had a two hour, seven pm midterm, i wasn’t feeling great about it but i had studied a good amount and i felt i was adequately prepared. i walked into the exam room, sat down, and immediately my heart started racing. as he was passing out the tests, i whispered to myself “im so excited!” so quietly that nobody else could hear. i proceeded to do the worst i have ever done on an exam, so bad that i started dissociating halfway through and left the last two questions (out of 9) completely blank. i got a 30.