2 Visualising your maths anxiety using the hand model

A way to visualise how you are feeling when you are studying mathematics is to think of the brain as a model of the hand. This method was developed by Daniel Siegel (2010) and has been adapted for studying maths (Johnston-Wilder, Lee and Mackrell, 2021).

• Hold your hand out flat and place the thumb on your palm. Imagine the thumb represents the limbic system, which is the part of the brain responsible for emotions. Your fingertips will represent the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain where logical thinking takes place.
• Fold your fingers over the thumb, so they touch, and the thumb is covered by the fingers. In this position the thumb (limbic system, your emotions) is protected by your fingers (the prefrontal cortex, your logical thinking). They are in contact which means the two parts of your brain can work together and your logical thinking and your emotions can find a balance. You will be calm and thoughtful, which can lead to effective study and meaningful interactions with new topics. You can rationalise your thought and realise that if something is hard to understand then working through the problem will help.
• Now lift your fingers up. In this position your thumb (your emotions) is no longer protected by your fingers. In this position, the tips of your fingers (your logical thinking) are no longer touching your thumb and so they cannot influence each other. In this state logical thinking cannot control your emotions and they can therefore rise unchecked. It is a term that has been coined as ‘flipping your lid’, because that protective lid of the prefrontal cortex has lifted up and exposed the limbic system. This can also be described as the fight-or-flight mode, because the heightened emotions make you either want to fight or run away. In this state the brain is effectively putting all its energy into trying to save your life as it believes it is being threatened. When your brain is putting that much energy into surviving, it will not be conducive to studying. This will be revisited in Session 4.