Feeling a little anxious? There’s a silver lining, according to a new study.
Anxiety could help sharpen your memory, per researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada. In a study of 80 undergraduate students, they found that people who had manageable levels of anxiety were better at accurately recalling events than their less-stressed counterparts.
“To some degree, there is an optimal level of anxiety that is going to benefit your memory,” Myra Fernandes, a professor of psychology at the university, writes in a press release. “But we know from other research that high levels of anxiety can cause people to reach a tipping point, which impacts their memories and performance.”
The study reinforced that tipping point: Participants whose anxiety got too high remembered details less vividly and were more likely to paint their recollections in a negative light.