We know that strong emotion such as anxiety interferes with memory. This is one of reason if a student has anxiety we deal with that first. Mindfulness is a useful tool for dealing with anxiety and indirectly helping with working memory. Most and his colleagues detail their findings in the April issue of the journal Emotion, published by the American Psychological Association.
“When an emotional stimulus appears, it draws attention to itself – and thus draws attention away from other things that come immediately afterwards,” Most said. “When attention is preoccupied in such a way, we tend to miss the thing that appears right in front of our eyes.”
And for those with heightened anxiety , the emotional distracters can be even more distracting.
