If you have ever been scared of Mathematics or probably ever felt goose bumps taking a math test, a simple change of body posture has been shown to help boost your scores.
This development was disclosed by researchers from the San Francisco State University.
“For people who are anxious about math, posture makes a giant difference,” said Erik Peper, professor of health education.
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The researchers tested 125 US college students to see how well they could perform simple math – subtracting 7 from 843 sequentially for 15 seconds – while either slumped over or sitting up straight with shoulders back and relaxed.
However, the findings suggested that over half of the participants found it more fun and easy to solve a mathematics question while sitting upright than slumped over.
“The slumped-over position shuts them down and their brains do not work as well. They cannot think as clearly.”
Explaining why doing math while slumped over was more difficult, the co-author Richard Harvey, an Associate Professor of Health Education stated that slumping over is a defensive posture that can trigger old negative memories in the body and brain.
Pepper added that the results can help people prepare for different types of performance under stress, not just math tests.