“My mind went blank”

Today I had a student who has been doing fine with maths, but when I decided to set him a timed test where he would be competing with someone else, he went into a mini-panic. “My mind has gone blank”, he said. Suddenly he wasn’t able to do things he could normally do.

Our brains go into a different mode when we feel stressed or under threat and if the anxiety is strong enough we can’t think at all. This is one of the signs of maths anxiety.

So how can we deal with it?

The first thing to do is to slow down and calm ourselves. We need to stop ourselves from staying in a panic. I reminded my student of how well he has been doing at maths and just talked to him gently. So often the problem is not just the maths itself, but how we feel about it and how we respond. As he calmed down he was able to perform better again and started to see that he could actually do what was asked of him.

So if you feel that panic coming over you, take a step back, breathe, and deliberately relax, if necessary think about some nice enjoyable things for a moment. You’ll find it easier after that.

Let me know in the comments how it works for you.