Research probes effects of anxiety on academic performance
By Mark McGhee • Aug 11th, 2009 • Category: Anxiety, Health News, Health Resources News
Anxious individuals may be at risk for scholastic underperformance as they may find it harder to avoid distractions and take longer to switch attention between tasks, researchers believe.
British scientists conducted several experiments, and in one of them they recorded participants’ eye movements as they read a story that included a few ‘distracter’ words that were unrelated to the narrative. They found that anxious participants took longer to read the story because they tended to dwell on the irrelevant words, especially when they thought that their performance would be subject to evaluation.
"A lot of the negative effects of anxiety appear to be caused by difficulties with controlling attention," says Professor Michael Eysenck, one of the authors of the study.
"This suggests that training techniques designed to enhance attentional control …could help anxious students to achieve their academic potential," he adds.
The researchers also stress that in most cases the effects of anxiety manifested themselves not so much in the quality of performance but in how much effort it took to perform a task, potentially adding to long term-stress.
Those who seek natural remedies to deal with anxiety may try nutritional supplements which contain extracts that have a calming effect, including chamomile, valerian and passionflower.
In addition to that, they may choose from a range of mind/body techniques such as breathing exercises, physical exercise, yoga, tai chi, hypnosis or meditation. 
Mark McGhee
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