Does Math Make You Anxious?

Does math make you feel sick? If so, you’re not alone. According to a new study by researchers at the University of Chicago, just thinking about math actually makes some people so anxious that they feel physical pain. The researchers’ paper about the link between math and the experience of pain was published in the online journal PLOS ONE last week.

“Fear of math can hurt: Anxiety about math activates pain networks in brain,” the paper stated. “Interestingly, this relation was not seen during math performance, suggesting that it is not that maths itself hurts; rather, the anticipation of maths is painful.”

This is by no means the first study to link psychological stress and physical pain. However, this case is interesting because the pain is caused by anticipating an anxiety-provoking event in the future, not by experiencing a stressful event in the present.

So, what about you SodaHeads? Does math make you anxious?