Math Anxiety

 

Hello everyone and welcome back!

Just to be clear, this isn't an entirely different subfield of Anxiety, as in the disorder, rather just another 'type' of anxiousness we feel - similar to Eco Anxiety; up to the level of being scared of it.

I had this period too. I used to cry before exams, begging for some miracle to occur.

After research, I found out that Maths particularly is one subject whose incomprehension attacks us the most. 
The reason: Maths is a whole other language. 
Though you'll find some English in it, majority of it is just a bunch of random symbols making sense.

What is "Math Anxiety" and its Impact?

Maths anxiety can also be called as a feeling of tension and apprehension that interferes with performance ability, especially in math, and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and academic situations.

Math anxiety is more than just feeling nervous about doing math. It's feeling anxious about everything related to it.
Looking at books, answering a question in class, and various other daily life situations.
Usually, people who have math anxiety believe that they are bad at math and due to this, they dislike math. These feelings lead them to avoid situations in which they have to do math. 

This anxiousness can also lead to various emotional implications and may also cause the person to hate the subject. Needless to mention, self doubt and self esteem decline is one of the leading effects of Math Anxiety.

A lot of times, this can also be incited by teachers who make students scared of the subject.
I was really lucky to have been blessed with teachers who made me fall in love with the subject, so much so, that I want to pursue it. They were the absolute best and would deal with my most frivolous doubts even a day before the exam :)

 This is directly linked to the below:

The Stanford Study

A positive attitude toward math boosts the brain’s memory center and predicts math performance independent of factors such as a child’s IQ.

Attitude towards the subject matters a lot.
(and this applies to literally everything out there; not just math!)

Bio alert!

From brain-imaging results, scientists have found that, when a child was solving a math problem, their positive-attitude scores correlated with activation in the hippocampus, an important memory and learning center in the brain. Statistical modeling of the brain imaging results suggested that the hippocampus(which plays a major role in learning and memory) mediates the link between positive attitude and efficient retrieval of facts from memory, which in turn is associated with better problem solving abilities.

To learn more about the study: Read here!

I would also recommend watching this ted talk if you want to learn about this topic!: Here!

That was it for today! Hope y'all enjoyed learning about this topic! I had a lot of fun reading up and authoring this post so let me know in the comments below your thoughts on it!
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Signing off,

Kuhu :)