Math is an essential part of life, and it can have a significant impact on our mental health. Memory-based math problems stimulate the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain that has been linked to depression and anxiety. Studies have found that increased activity in this area is associated with fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression. Unfortunately, math anxiety affects nearly half of elementary school students, so it's important to be aware of the signs and use strategies to counteract them. Mathematics anxiety has been primarily studied in educational settings, but research has rarely been linked to clinical research on anxiety disorders.
While many people who claim to be affected by math anxiety may not meet the criteria for an anxiety disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), research shows that math anxiety affects people of all ages in academic situations and can have a negative effect on their academic success and well-being. It's also important to note that math anxiety is different from anxiety in other subjects or from general test anxiety; for example, research on anxiety in related subjects such as mathematics and statistics shows that math anxiety and statistical anxiety are largely independent of each other and have different effects on students. Math anxiety can lead to poor performance in math classes, but its effects don't end with graduation. Throughout life, this type of stress can hinder the mastery of skills or projects that are computer-based. Mathematically eager students (often women) may avoid enrolling not only in mathematics courses but also in related fields such as science, technology, and engineering.
With less exposure to mathematics than their peers, these students tend to perform poorly on assignments and evaluations. They may even have this reaction when they know that the answer is fear, which stands in the way, not mathematics. It's important to remember that math is necessary for good health. While very few studies investigate the interaction between motivation, math anxiety, and performance, one study suggested that female teachers with math anxiety may involuntarily transmit that anxiety to girls in their classes. Both in education and in research, it is necessary to evaluate mathematical anxiety and compare the anxiety levels of different individuals. Some suggest reformulating anxiety by asking people to write and think critically about their mathematics-related concerns to help them realize that fear is illogical.
Students should also begin to view low grades as labels that confirm their belief that they simply can't do math. Math anxiety interacts with variables such as self-efficacy or motivation in mathematics, which can intensify or counteract math anxiety. Math anxiety not only impairs genuine mathematical cognitive processes but also general cognitive processes that depend on fluency. For the advancement of interventions on mathematical anxiety, a clinimetric framework with a joint understanding and description of the phenomenon itself, of rating scales and indices for measuring mathematical anxiety, as well as for the success of interventions, would be useful.
