ROCKY HILL, Conn. -- A hypnotist is helping students overcome a fear of the SATs he said he also suffered from when he was a child.

“I found many times, although I knew the material, when I went down, sat down, picked up the pencil, my mind would go blank,” said hypnotist John Parisi. “I would panic, and my mind would go blank.”

But he said hypnosis can help.

“I can't make people cluck like a chicken,” he said. “It's not stage hypnosis. It's just a deep stage of relaxation.”

Parisi said his session teach students how to relax when faced with the pressures of testing.

“All our knowledge is stored in our subconscious,” he said. “Our short-term memory is where we need it for taking a test. It allows the flow to come out of the subconscious to the conscious. It sort of stops, breaks up the dam that is in between that. The anxiety is blocking the information from coming.”

By practicing relaxation techniques, he said, the students are basically in a better state of mind when faced with the pressures testing can bring about.