Maths Anxiety Pt 1: What is Maths Anxiety?
Maths anxiety is a surprisingly common thing - it is the feeling of apprehension or anxiety when faced with a maths problem. It can therefore limit performance in mathematical subjects, but is in no way linked to intelligence or ability. Although anyone can experience this, it is most common in girls and women. Throughout my career in education, I’ve seen and helped people through a lot of maths anxiety, and this blog post series is going to look at the causes of maths anxiety and how we can help treat and deal with it.
So what causes maths anxiety?
Like all anxiety, the causes of maths anxiety are usually quite complex and varied, as maths is in our everyday life, from adding two prices together at the grocery store to budgeting to paying bills and taxes. Common causes include:
External pressures, like exams, paying bills and taxes by a deadline, as this brings time pressure and judgement on whether or not your answer is correct.
Past experiences - being judged or humiliated previously for incorrect answers in class, or receiving a bad grade, or simply the fear of being embarrassed for doing badly, even if it has never previously happened to you.
Perfectionism and the fear of failure - similar to the last point, but perfectionism causes you to stress over your work as you anticipate making mistakes.
Authority figures - it can also be people in your life that are contributing to the anxiety, for example, an imposing landlord who collects rent and bills every month or a particularly scary maths teacher.
Cultural bias - maths anxiety affects everyone, but is particularly prevalent in women and girls because of the societal bias about women being worse at maths and logical skills. This also extends to your background, and can be imposed on you by anyone from peers to family to the general environment you are in.
Financial issues - money is a big cause of stress for a lot of people, so anything related to chequebooks, unpaid bills, taxes, even shopping sometimes can be a source of anxiety for some people.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but is a few of the most common causes of maths anxiety.
What are its symptoms and how does it affect people?
It has a lot of the same symptoms as general anxiety, as it is simply a subset of that. This includes elevated heart rate, breathing faster, sweating, nausea, sweating, feeling panicked or stressed, feeling flustered and struggling to focus on a calculation you know you can do. Some other, less noticeable symptoms are negative self-talk, putting off maths problems or homework, dreading maths lessons in school, difficulty remembering or understanding mathematical concepts and panic and anxiety when doing maths. It is important to remember that it is NOT an indicator of academic ability, as the phobia of maths can inhibit you from doing problems you may have otherwise been able to do.
Although this seems like a very niche issue, maths anxiety can have knock-on effects later in life, as maths is needed everywhere and is deceptively important. Untreated maths anxiety can result in anxiety simply by looking at sale discounts or checking your bank balance, and is a very real issue. This concludes the first part of this series, and next week’s blog post will focus on ways to best tackle maths anxiety.