It’s never too late to stop hating math

this isn’t the first time the math graph has trended downward. A similar development took place during the early stages of the Cold War, when enrollment in high school algebra fell to levels not seen since the start of the 20th century. It wasn’t until the launch of Sputnik in 1957, when the Soviet Union kicked off the space race, that alarm gave way to action. Math and science education were overhauled, and calculus was introduced into the curriculum.

To learn math, the French mathematician David Bessis writes in his book Mathematica, is to “change the way you see the world.”

According to one survey, 9 out of every 10 U.S. adults have experienced some level of math anxiety. Math anxiety is so common that even LLMs — AIs trained on vast amounts of human output — associate numbers with words like frustrating, exasperating, and alarming.

Math anxiety even shares many symptoms with regular anxiety: clammy palms, an upset stomach, increased heart rate, and lightheadedness. By activating the brain’s pain and fear centers (the insula and amygdala), math anxiety can impair your working memory and, by extension, cognitive abilities — explaining all those times you watched aghast as the equations in your textbook morphed into indecipherable hieroglyphics.

Bessis — who specializes in algebra, geometry, and topology, and achieved mathematical fame for solving a problem dating back to the Nixon presidency — says overcoming math anxiety begins with recognizing that it is shared by people at every skill level.

Using the celebrated French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck as an example, Bessis argues math is best pursued with the mindset of a toddler: with “radical curiosity and indifference to judgment.” Think not of the panic attacks you suffered during exams, but the pride you felt when you learned to count to ten.

Studies have found that math exercises correlate with cognitive function and metacognition (thinking about thinking) — both of which, in turn, correlate with mental health.

The research also suggests that math can, directly or indirectly, improve neuroplasticity and emotional regulation, and help stave off dementia.

Contrary to the long-discredited yet persistent left brain vs. right brain myth, mathematics is useful in the arts — another field that many wrongly believe requires an innate talent to explore and enjoy.

A study assessing thousands of students in China found that mathematical literacy and creative thinking go hand in hand, suggesting that one stimulates the other and vice versa. There’s something about math that resembles the process of literary writing. It teaches you to articulate what’s real, what’s in front of you.

Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance heavyweights could not have brought their paintings to life without a deeply technical understanding of perspective, and they often constructed their images using a variety of scientific instruments and measurement tools. More recently, saxophonist John Coltrane and drummer Clayton Cameron credited their musical success to their mathematical abilities — lived experiences that support contemporary research exploring the link between early music education and later mathematical performance.

Just as there is math in art, some mathematicians would claim that there is art in math. “When I write down a proof,” Cymra Haskell, a professor at the University of Southern California, once told her college’s newspaper, “it feels like a puzzle coming together. There can be an intense pleasure in that, similar to the pleasure I feel when I listen to a beautiful piece of music or gaze at a beautiful painting.”

More than a metaphor, her observation evokes a study that examined neural activity in 15 mathematicians. It found that looking at certain equations jump-started the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the same part of the brain responsible for perceiving and appreciating beauty.

“Victor Hugo was an accomplished math student and almost stuck with it. There’s something about math that resembles the process of literary writing. It teaches you to articulate what’s real, what’s in front of you, like describing exactly how you tie your shoes.”