If you’ve stumbled upon this article while procrastinating on your upcoming math assignment (see, it’s numbers again!!), congratulations—you’re in the right place. There are really only two kinds of people on the infinite points of a number line: people who despise math and those who enjoy it. As a proud representative of the latter community, I’m going to try and convince you that math might not be the cause of your anxiety but could actually be the cure.
Math and the Brain: A Surprising Connection
The feeling of anxiety is controlled by constant interactions between different parts of the brain, often referred to as the “fear network.” The simplest explanation is that the brain can be split into two parts: the cognitive brain (your logic center) and the emotional brain (your feelings). When impulses from the emotional brain override the cognitive brain, that’s when anxiety kicks in.
Now, there’s a specific part of the brain we’re going to focus on called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DL-PFC). This area controls cognitive functions, decision-making, and working memory. It’s also involved in regulating emotions and managing stress—sounds pretty important, right?
How Mental Math Can Help with Anxiety
A recent study at Duke University offers some insight into how being good at mental math might actually lower your risk of depression and anxiety. Ahmad Hariri, a psychology and neuroscience professor, and his team studied 186 participants and analyzed their brain activity while solving memory-based math problems. They found that the DL-PFC lights up when working on these math tasks, and the more active this part of the brain was, the fewer symptoms of anxiety people experienced. In fact, they even found that people with higher DL-PFC activity while doing mental math were better at adapting to emotionally difficult situations. Who knew math could be so helpful?
While the research is still in its early stages, and we don’t have conclusive proof yet, one of Hariri’s graduate students, Matthew Scult, is hopeful that learning how to tackle complex math problems could also help us approach tough emotional situations in new ways.
How to Boost Your Mental Math Skills
While we wait for more results from the study, here are a few tips to start building your mental math muscles:
- Break down big problems into smaller, more manageable ones.
- Look for patterns in basic calculations to make them easier.
- Visualize numbers and their movements in your mind.
- Solve math puzzles, like a Rubik’s Cube, to improve your problem-solving skills.
- Try out apps designed to strengthen mental math.
So, the next time you find yourself asking, “Why am I even taking this math class?” think of it as sharpening a tool that could help you battle stress and anxiety. And before I say goodbye, here’s a quick math challenge for you: “Using only addition, add eight 8’s to get 1,000.” Have fun math-ing!