That seed of fear may come from many sources – but one thought is that teachers may be spreading their own anxieties to the next generation. Children can sense if an adult feels nervous and begin to think they should be on the lookout for danger too – along these lines, teachers who feel nervous about their own mathematical abilities do tend to have more anxious pupils. Cultural expectations may also be to blame – girls may be more likely to catch maths anxiety (particularly from female teachers), perhaps because of stereotypes that girls are naturally not very good at maths. Your genes, meanwhile, might predispose you to anxiety more generally – making you more likely to respond aversely to maths as well as any other kinds of “threat”.

Whatever its origins, once the seed of the fear takes root, it may grow by itself: the more anxious you feel, the worse you perform, the more you shy away from maths and the more you worry when you face it again. And the psychologists suggest it may have serious consequences. People with maths anxiety were less likely to understand statistics about the apparent risks of genetically modified food, for instance; by the same token, it’s easy to see how it could lead to a serious misunderstanding of real dangers like smoking or over-eating.

Psychologists often treat anxieties with aversion therapy – in which you face your fears to try to learn to cope with the anxiety. Unfortunately, continued maths classes don’t seem to numb the dread. But there may be other solutions. So-called ‘expressive writing’ may be one simple measure – many studies find that articulating your fears can loosen their hold on you. One class asked to write about their fears before an exam improved their average grades from around a B- to a B+. Others are looking at subtle ways of reframing the fear – encouraging children to see a test as a challenge, not a threat, for instance, and explaining that their fear doesn’t not necessarily reflect a natural bad ability.

Could reframing my fears offset the panic the next time I am asked to split a restaurant bill? I’ll certainly give it a go. If not, there’s always my usual crutch – my smartphone calculator.

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