Nobody likes anxiety. In fact, you may have already spent countless hours googling seeking methods to get rid of anxiety. But hang on before you ditch it all because according to a new study, anxiety has some benefits. The full findings of the study were published in the journal Psychophysiology.
The study says that anxious people are better when it comes to making a risky decision. Anxious people tend to apply more cognitive control when they make a risky decision compared to a less anxious person.
How did the Researchers arrive at the conclusion?
The researchers have examined 20 high and 20 low anxious people and were made to play a risk game. They used Electroencephalography to observe the brain activity while the subjects participated in the game. The result showed higher frontal midline theta power – a specific type of brain activity -in highly anxious individuals during their decisions, which indicates more control. Higher frontal midline theta power, in turn, predicted less risky choices.
“We showed that high anxious individuals also perceived risky situations as riskier, which is in line with the higher amount of cognitive control during their risk choices in the game. Obviously, they try to avoid negative outcomes,” lead author Dr Barbara Schmidt of the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, said.
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Higher frontal midline theta power indicates a low-risk decision. Using this knowledge, the researchers can even use relevant EEG to predict the decisions a person will make in certain situations.
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