Anxiety and Attention--A New Study

A fascinating study out of the UK reports that anxiety can lead to problems with maintaining attention, which has implications for education, especially in our complex modern world. Professor Michael Eysenck and Dr Nazanin Derkshan of The Economic and Social Research Council have found that those who suffer from anxiety have a difficult time ignoring distractions, and find it harder to transition from one task to another than those who do not.

The study also found that those suffering from anxiety do as well as those who do not suffer on comparable tasks, but it costs them more effort and long term stress. In an experiment involving math problems, the correctness of the answers were not affected, but the participants took longer to solve the problems.

People who suffer from anxiety have to try harder to achieve the same levels of success as non-sufferers, often with negative results that are not seen for quite some time.

 Parents, school boards and elected officials should take into account the struggles that individual students must go through to maintain the standards they set.  More attention needs to be focused on helping students with anxiety so that they have the tools necessary to function in school, and in life.




Photo from here.