There is a dynamic, reciprocal relationship between executive functioning (EF) and academic anxiety. Students with strong EF skills—including planning, organizing, prioritizing, inhibiting distractions, and recruiting resources—have a solid foundation for academic success and are less likely to experience debilitating anxiety. Conversely, when even high-achieving students experience intense academic anxiety and emotional dysregulation, their EF skills can become impaired.
Research and observations in academic environments show that students who ordinarily excel in planning and organizing can become significantly less effective when they enter a loop of anxiety. They may begin to perceive upcoming academic challenges as threats, leading them to avoid or mismanage tasks that they typically handle well.
Similarly, students with relatively weak EF skills often feel unprepared to tackle academic challenges, which can lead to heightened anxiety about their performance and future prospects. Frequently, students experiencing significant anxiety have underlying skill deficits, with these deficits acting as the primary sources of their anxiety. When such students can build foundational skills and experience incremental successes, their anxiety often diminishes.
Anxiety on a Continuum
We all experience some anxiety as a condition of being human. Some anxiety and stress is helpful, and even essential. Stress can be a powerful motivator, and at the right dose it can be conceived of as “eustress,” or good stress. Excessive stress, however, becomes distress and shifts from being a motivating force to a stifling force that impairs problem-solving.
Shifting Mental Gears
Students experiencing paralyzing levels of anxiety can benefit from understanding the neurobiology of stress. Learning how to activate problem-solving centers and engage the brain’s frontal cortex—where EF skills are processed—can help regulate responses to stress. Shifting from fear to planning and problem-solving sends inhibitory neurotransmitters, GABA, towards the amygdala to calm activation patterns and down-regulate the stress response. I learned the importance of this conversation from psychiatry professor Dan Siegel, who has found that teaching students how their brain works pays meaningful dividends.
Once you begin putting a plan in place, the sense of dread and overwhelming anxiety shifts toward action, reducing feelings of overwhelming anxiety. Specific steps might include dedicating regular time for studying, planning assignments in advance, attending office hours, and seeking additional support as needed. A structured plan not only provides direction but also shifts attention from abstract worries to concrete, achievable goals.
Building Strong EF Skills as a Buffer against Anxiety
Students who attend to their EF skills may decrease their levels of anxiety. There are multiple mechanisms at play:
- Strengthening the executive function of inhibition can help modulate the activity of the amygdala.
- Strengthening working memory can help in the processing and regulation of emotions.
- Strengthening cognitive flexibility, the ability to shift perspectives and avoid rigid thinking patterns, can help decrease anxiety.
- Improving planning and problem-solving can increase feelings of self-efficacy and decrease anxiety.
- Increasing the ability to focus attention and inhibit distraction can help give a measure of cognitive and emotional control.
- Enhancing goal-directed behaviors can increase perceptions of ability and self-efficacy, which has been shown to decrease anxiety.
To learn more about the EF support that Summit can provide, schedule a call with one of our Program Directors.
Building resilient and successful students is our goal. If we can help students strengthen their EF skills, they’ll be prepared to succeed in a variety of academic environments and conditions.
Moreover, students with strong EF skills will be better suited to navigate academic challenges without experiencing debilitating anxiety and to seek out help and support when they need it, in academic and non-academic domains.