Question: does anxiety affect memory

Michael Craig answered on 8 Mar 2013:

Hi Kseleka,

That’s a very interesting question. Yes, anxiety has been found to have a negative effect on memory. Emotion and stress can have a big influence on how the brain works and anxiety is just one form of stress which can have a negative effect. The problems caused by negative emotions on memory can be seen especially in people who have depression. Depressed people are often unable to remember as much information as someone who is not depressed.

It is also interesting that how well we remember new information is influenced by how emotional that memory is. For example, we tend to remember new memories which have very happy or very sad emotions attached to them compared to new memories that don’t really have any emotion attached to them.

I hope that answers your question, let me know if I can help more!
Michael