Does solving a math problem give you a headache? Doyou feel nervous when you sit a math exam? For most students, math can be tough but scientists have proved that math problems can actually trigger physical pain. Scientists came to his conclusion with an in-depth experiment, which was published in the Public Library of Science One journal. They began by finding out how much participants fearmath. Those involved were asked a series of questions such as how they feel when they receive amathtextbook orwhenthey walkinto amathlesson. Based on their answers, participants were divided into groups. One group was made up of peoplewhowere particularly afraid ofmath  and participantsinthe other  group weremore comfortablewiththesubject. Both groups were then given either math tasks or word tasks. When a math task was going to come next, a yellow circle would appear but when a word task was soon to come, a blue squarewould beshown. Using a brain-scan machine, scientists noticed that whenever people from Group One saw ayellow circle, their brain would respond in a way similar to when their bodyis feeling pain. It waslike the pain they would fee, for example, if they burnt their hand on a hot stove. But theyreactedlessstrongly whenthey knew that they would befaced with awordtask. However, scientistssaw no strong brainresponsefrom peopleinthesecond group. Math can be difficult, and for those with high levels of mathematics-anxiety (HMA), math is associated with tension, apprehension and fear. "When you are really thinking about the math problems, your mind is racing and you are worrying about all the things that could go wrong," explained Ian Lyons from University of Chicago, US, leader of the study. "The higher a person's anxiety of a maths task, the more he activated brain regions associated with threat detection, andthe experience of pain." More interestingly, the brain activity disappeared when participants actually started dealingwiththemathtasks. "This means that it'snot that mathitself hurts; rather, the anticipation ofmathis painful,"Lyonssaid. Based on the study, scientists suggested that things could be done to help students worry less andmove past theirfear ofmath,which might meanthey perform betterintests. What can be concludedfrom the experiment?
Theanticipation ofmath has norelationto students' confidenceinmath. Moderatemathematic anxiety promotes students' academic performance. Effectivesolutions havebeenworked out tolower students' anxiety ofmath. Physical pain causedby HMA disappearsinthe process of doingmath problem.