Beating Math Anxiety
Remember those math classes you checked
out of in middle school, high school, even college? If you have been
experiencing career stagnation, the cause might be your limited math skills.
Improving them may be the first step to restoring your upward mobility or help
energize your small business. In this knol, I’ll talk about how to beat math
anxiety.
Everyone suffers from anxiety when performing some action they believe they are not good at or before demonstrating it to others. For example, even great mathematicians, singers, dancers, professors, business experts suffer pangs of anxiety before their performances. So you are not alone when it comes to being nervous about your abilities.
Math anxiety is a feeling of frustration
and helplessness about math ability. But you can learn to focus your anxiety
and put it aside so you can improve your math skills and improve performance on
the job or for your small business.
Both how math has been taught at school
and other social pressures cause normal, intelligent, skilled people to be
anxious about their ability to do math. First, at school, math was often a
boring subject taught by uninspired or unskilled math teachers (Not ALL
teachers, but some…). Lessons were learned by rote memorization and
repetition and not tied to every day life in a meaningful way. Also, our
society has a way of treating people that are good at math as geniuses, outside
the norm of society. Admitting that math is hard or you are not good at it is
bound to have people around you nodding in understanding.
But it is important to know that everyone
can do math, just like everyone can read. Math ability does not require some
inborn trait or special brain power. Understanding and applying math concepts
to everyday life is done by most everyone, everyday, and does not require
special or extraordinary abilities. And men are NOT better at math than women,
whatever you have heard.
WAYS TO CALM YOUR MATH ANXIETY
There are four common ways to deal with
math anxiety:
Avoid all math - People using this method carefully construct their life to avoid
any math. They might cede all math duties to their spouse, friend, co-worker.
Since math cannot be totally avoided, these people live anxious lives.
Self-criticism - People using this method deny the feels of anxiety, but criticize
themselves severely for not understanding the math concepts.
Rationalization - In this case, the anxious person justifies the feelings using
one of the reasons mentioned above. Unusually, their will be a lot of positive
reinforcement from his coworkers and friends, since they are anxious too.
OWN IT, EDUCATE
YOURSELF
The best way to bring math anxiety down to manageable levels is to look it in the eye and own it. Think about the reasons you have math anxiety and how those reasons make you feel. Accept how you feel about math with no excuses or self-criticism. And then start to learn math all over again.
I generally believe that learning math at
the 7th grade level is the best for most non-technical jobs.
Treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Prevention is always the key to good
health. And preventing panic attacks is the key to a peaceful living. When
nothing makes you worry too much or affects your actions, you are far away from
anxiety. And if you are far from it, you have a peaceful being.
Panic attacks linger inside of us. It
lived within us without us knowing and without being aware of it. These attacks
are often felt without a warning. It can surprise even the person itself.
However, sometimes this happens only once or twice. Otherwise, if these attacks
happen very frequently, or recurring it is considered a disorder already. There
is treatment for generalized anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder is
a kind of anxiety disorder that comprises of worrying excessively over almost
everything on a daily basis. Usually it is an unaware, uncontrollable,
irrational type of worrying over simple things that occurs everyday. There is a
process or method to help treat this kind of condition. The following are only
a few of many.
- Cognitive Behavioral approach
- SSRIs
- Benzodiapines
- Herbal
Cognitive behavioral approach is a method or therapy to treat GAD
or Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The therapist would usually touch base with
the patient’s emotions, feelings, thoughts, and behavior.
SSRI is a common anxiety anti-depressant drug that helps the
affected person to get temporary relief over his condition. It is known to be
effective and safe, however, like most drugs, a slight side-effect is commonly
observed through prolonged use.
Benzodiapines is another type of drug used as sedative for affected
people that has a rather high intensity of attacks. It is also given as a
temporary relief to patients since it has a tendency to be “habit-forming”. The
same as SSRI, it has its own number of side effects. Drowsiness and nausea are
a few of them.
Herbal methods are also used as treatment for generalized anxiety disorder.
Overly health conscious people who are
suffering from anxiety disorders would rather use herbal ways. Kava is a sample
of herbal treatment for this illness. Kava is a root from the black pepper
plant family. It is found effective and safe in controlling generalized anxiety
disorder. Usually is used for short term relief as well just like the above
mentioned drugs. Too much use or improperly consumed might result to some liver
damage to patients who take them.
In general, anxiety disorders are usually self-afflicted illness. The thoughts
of affected people are the ones to trigger the panic moments. How shall this be
cured? There are ways that are doable even without the help of medical
professionals. This can be done in the comforts of your home as long as the
attacks are rather slight when they occur and not as severe as a heart attack.
Tips and Warnings in preventing panic attacks:
Trim down your stress –
this mean that we think about everything
everyday. We tend to worry what to happen next or if what we just did was the
right thing to do. Excessive thinking leads to worrying then stress. Reduce
your daily stress. Panic attacks usually occur during the stress moments. And
it adds up as stressful times of your life.
Tell your doctor of all your fears (phobias) – by being honest to
your physician is a way to let him know all about you and your illness. It
gives them the whole scenario of your disorder. Once you have been honest
enough to your physician, he would know what method to use for you. Now is not
the time to be secretive. Tell it all, by being honest and truthful of your dilemma
is the way to cure.
Let your family help you – by letting your family know of your
situation, you open the doors to them and lets them know you are seeking and
needing their support. Family and friends can usually add meaning to us and
gives us hope to want to get well.
Stop your vices – two major, deadly, and health damaging vices are
smoking and drinking. It is best to put a halt on them for you to conquer cure.
Lessen your caffeine – coffee is our daily morning booster,
however, too much of this is not healthy anymore. It makes our heart prone to
palpitations and attacks. However, it is not limited to coffee alone, anything
with caffeine is to be taken in moderation once you know you are suffering from
panic attacks
