Your mind goes blank, your heart starts beating faster and you feel really stressed because you are in a situation where you have to do some maths. You might have been at school, at work, or maybe you were just trying to figure out the cost of the groceries.
Maths anxiety is the stress you get when you have to use numbers and calculations in every day life, or when you are studying maths at school or college. It is remarkably common - you almost certainly know someone close to you that is suffering from it, even if you don’t have it yourself. A lot of people will have had anxiety about maths for many years and may not even appreciate that it is maths anxiety they are suffering from.
Maths anxiety can be disabling; many adults struggle to handle their finances effectively simply because of that anxiety, the fear of thinking about numbers and sums.
In my experience of teaching maths in schools, further education, and in private lessons, both in the UK and overseas, I have seen people of all age-groups struggling with maths, from the under-10s to the over-60s. Studies have shown that in the UK more than 1 in 3 (36%) of those in the age range 15 to 24 feel anxious about maths (Ipsos MORI poll 2018) and in the US, most adults (93%) say they have some level of maths anxiety; another study across 34 countries showed that one in three 15- and 16-year-olds say they get tense doing maths homework (Programme for International Student Assessment).
How severe it is can be different for each person. For some people they just feel tense when asked to do some maths but they manage to cover it up and avoid the subject without raising too many questions. For others, they are paralysed by it, unable to sleep at night before a maths test or freezing when having to answer a maths question.
What causes Maths Anxiety?
There are several different reasons why a person may develop maths anxiety in the first place.
Often it begins for someone when they start to fall behind in the maths class at school; as others appear to be managing you find yourself getting further and further behind and then never seem to manage to catch back up. A person may be laughed at because they don’t understand something. They may feel that the teacher is giving preference to other people or that maybe they are in some way unable to understand maths.
Some issues may contribute to maths anxiety: dyslexia, dyscalculia, traumatic experiences, autism, ADHD etc. Even things like poor diet can make it harder to take in information and then perform worse at maths which can then lead to maths anxiety.
How do I tackle Maths Anxiety?
One of the biggest issues in maths anxiety is a "negative feedback loop" - in other words, when things start to get difficult, you feel stressed or you panic, you mind slows down, and then it gets even harder to do maths, and so on.
So to overcome maths anxiety, you need to break this loop.
The first thing to do is to recognise what is happening. I use a "Toolkit" to help my students, and one of the items in the Toolkit is the Growth Zone Model. It identifies three different zones - the Green Zone (the Comfort Zone), the Amber Zone (the Growth Zone) and the Red Zone (the Danger Zone). If you are happy, you are in the Green Zone. If you are panicking, you are in the Red Zone. If you feel challenged, but can handle it, you are in the Amber Zone.
If you recognise that you are in the Red Zone, you need to find a way to calm down. The first simple thing you can do is to control your breathing - take slow, deep breaths. You may want to think about something pleasant to help calm you down; I even suggest to my own students to go for a walk out of the class for a few minutes if it helps them to relax! Once you can get back into the Amber Zone, then you are ready to learn again.
It also helps to slow down and go back over things again to help you understand. This site has a number of links and resources which can help you to revise maths material in your own time.
One of the best ways of learning is when you feel that you are cared for and supported, instead of criticized or laughed at. If you can't get that in your classroom, home or work environment, we have a community on this website where you can talk to others who have gone through similar things to you. If you sign up (which is free) you can message the other members, or even chat with me to get some advice and support.
Come and join us on this journey, and please share your stories of your struggles and successes!
