Anxiety-Prone People Find Distractions Hard to Ignore

[David Baxter PhD]

Anxiety-Prone People Find Distractions Hard to Ignore
HealthDay News
Monday, June 29, 2009

Trouble concentrating may add to stress levels, researcher says

Anxious people have more difficulty tuning out distractions and require more time to shift their attention from one task to another, a new study from British researchers has found.

The study included volunteers who took part in several experiments designed to assess the effects of anxiety on their ability to perform such tasks as avoiding distractions when reading a story or solving a series of simple math problems.

In one test, participants were told to read a story on a computer screen, and their eye movements were recorded as they read. The story included a few unrelated "distracter" words, and the researchers found that anxious people took longer to read the story because they tended to dwell on the irrelevant words, especially when they believed they would be evaluated on their reading comprehension.

In a different experiment, volunteers alternated between multiplication and division problems. Anxious participants took longer to complete the task, the study found.

"A lot of the negative effects of anxiety appear to be caused by difficulties with controlling attention," study co-author Michael Eysenck of Royal Holloway, University of London, said in a news release from the Economic & Social Research Council, which funded the study. "This suggests that training techniques designed to enhance attentional control -- the ability to ignore distractions and to switch attention from one task to another -- could help anxious students to achieve their academic potential."

Eysenck and colleague Nazanin Derakshan also found that anxious people often perform at a level comparable to those who aren't anxious, but at a greater cost in terms of effort and perhaps long-term stress.

"This shows that it is important that teachers focus not only on whether a student's academic performance seems to be OK but also on how much effort the student had to put in to achieve that level," Eysenck said. "Anxious students may be trying desperately hard just to keep up, and this could be at great psychological cost."

The study appears in a recent issue of the council's publication, Society Today.

 

[Retired]

the researchers found that anxious people took longer to read the story because they tended to dwell on the irrelevant words, especially when they believed they would be evaluated on their reading comprehension

How does this differ or relate to people with Attention Deficit Disorder who are easily distracted from the task at hand?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

How does this differ or relate to people with Attention Deficit Disorder who are easily distracted from the task at hand?

First, I think it's a reminder that ADHD should not be diagnosed simply on the basis of distractibility, because there can be many reasons for that. As I've mentioned before, a couple of decades ago the diagnostic criteria for ADD used to include the caveat that ADD should not be diagnosed unless alternative causes of the symptoms have already been ruled out. Somewhere around DSM-III, this part was dropped. But the fact remains that stress, amxiety, depression, thyroid dysfunction, family dysfunction or a chaotic home environment, and other conditions can all mimic symptoms of ADHD. Jumping to the ADHD diagnosis without considering these other factors is incompetent, in my opinion.

Second, Dr. Charles Parker, who writes a blog about ADHD, has been recently talking about the links between anxiety, OCD, and ADHD. Whether his notions about ADHD will be borne out remains to be seen but it's certainly interesting. Exactly what the links between anxiety and ADHD are go beyond my level of expertise when it comes to ADHD. I'll note, however, (a) that there are established links between ADHD and depression, with the assumption that the depression is secondary to the frustration and "failure" that accompanies untreated ADHD; and (b) SSRI/SNRI medications that are effective in treating anxiety and depression also seem to be helpful for at least some cases of ADHD, although how they are helpful is still open to question.

 

[prayerbear]

I have been diagnosed OCD, bipolar 2 and PTSD. What is wrong with me? I seem always to be so deep in thought and have trouble following directions. I daydream and have trouble focusing!

prayerbear

 

[Jazzey]

Hi prayerbear. I was very recently diagnosed with a dissociative disorder. Like you, I can completely ignore the surrounding world. Depending on the day, my focus can be completely gone.

I'm diagnosed with PTSD, major depression disorder and anxiety. But I'm grateful to understand the diagnosis. I don't feel quite so guilty about the distraction if this makes sense.

Are you currently seeing someone who can help you find some grounding a little? A therapist?

I don't want to sound overly optimistic - but I'm so grateful to have that label sometimes. Now I know that it's just part of the symptoms. Not necessarily me being a space cadet.