Anxiety And Anxiety In Sport

Have you ever felt an overwhelming feeling of fear or nervousness, prior to competing in an important event? Did it affect your ability to perform? If so, you may be familiar with performance anxiety. An athlete suffering from performance anxiety often will perceive competitive situations as threatening, which can result in feelings of apprehension, fearfulness and tension (Patel, Omar, Terry, 2010). Interestingly, studies have found the prevalence of sport-related performance anxiety to be much higher in female athletes than male athletes (Thatcher, Thatcher,

Anxiety affects the entire person. It affects the physiological, behavioral and psychologically. Physiological anxiety include body reactions like rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, queasiness, dry mouth and sweating. Behavioral it can interfere with the ability to act, express yourself or handle everyday situations. Psychologically anxiety causes apprehension and uneasiness. It can cause one to feel detached from one’s body or fearful of dying or going crazy. Criteria must be met are 1. Symptoms must interfere with important areas of functioning or cause marked distress. 2. Symptoms are not caused by a drug or a medical condition. 3. The fears and anxieties are distinct from the symptoms of another anxiety disorder (Kring, p. 174).

Anxiety is defined as the body’s natural response to danger, an automatic alarm that goes off when you feel threatened, under pressure, or are facing a stressful situation. A little bit of anxiety can actually help a person stay attentive and on track. If we did not feel a certain level of pressure at a job or school, then perhaps we wouldn’t care about it as much. We might slack or leave a few loose ends that may cause us to fall behind. A little bit is actually beneficial, but unfortunately there are people who have to deal with anxiety as part of a mental illness or disorder. There are different types of anxiety which include: general anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and social phobia.

Granito Jr. and Vincent J. did a study in 2002 over the psychological response to athletic injury. The purpose of their study was to describe the athletic injury experience, focusing on differences between male and female athletes. 31 injured athletes (15 male and 16 female) were interviewed about their athletic injury. Each participant went through an interview process, consisting of an in-depth interview and follow-up telephone interviews. The interview data were analyzed, and compared between the male and female athletes. The results showed that female athletes tended to perceive the coaches as much more negative with respect to how the coach treated them following their injury; were less likely to talk about a significant other (boyfriend/girlfriend); and were more concerned about how the injury would influence their health at a future point. Conclusions focused on possible explanations and how the results fit into the current theory for the psychological response to injury for each gender.

The beneficial aspects of participating in sports are often noted but there is another side that cannot be ignored. Mental health issues among elite athletes is a topic of increasing interest and public awareness. Sport-related factors such as injury, overtraining and failure in competition are showing to influence the prevalence of mental health issues in elite athletes. Whatever the cause or reason mental health issues and concerns cannot be ignored. High performance athletes need to be provided with mental health support, despite the negative stigma of mental health issues and the concept of mental toughness in athletes. In the past, there has been a “widespread assumption has existed within the sporting world that only emotionally and mentally strong athletes are able to complete at the highest levels. Psychological disorders, such as depression, were thought to infrequently occur among elite athletes” (Hammond et al, 2013, pg.276) There may actually be an increased risk for mental health issues in athletes as they are less likely to; seek treatment, reveal symptoms, are more accustomed to work through pain, fear of showing signs of weakness and may not have developed healthy coping mechanisms to deal with failure. In addition, many athletes have not developed their identity outside of being an athlete and therefore if this role is threatened by injury or illness, they may experience a significant sense of loss. Treating a psychological ailment in athletes should be given as much importance as treating a physical

Because of these factors student athletes can be at a higher risk of anxiety and depression.

Youth sports is a common thing for kids to be apart of growing up, parents sign their kids up in hope of creating lifelong friendships, encouraging physical activity, and most of all to have fun. Youth sports was also created to introduce all different types of sports to children and have it open their eyes to different activities. Calvin H. Chang is the author of Handbook of Sports Psychology. Cheng explains how stress is caused at such a young age and most likely because of the pressure of their parents. Cheng mentioned “behavioral indicators of state anxiety include insomnia, losing one’s appetite, nervous laughter and being jittery. Physiological changes include increased heart rate, respiration, galvanic skin responses, and palmar sweating. Psychological measures include state anxiety and other in-depth measurements of negative thoughts and feelings” (Cheng 172). The stress from youth sports is taking a toll on children and causing their body more harm than good. Parents want what is best for their children, but they are pushing them harder than what they can handle. Jane E. Brody is the Personal Health columnist for The New York Times. She joined The Times as a

Anxiety is sometimes considered to be a normal reaction to stress. It may help a person to deal with a difficult situation, however

One common type of anxiety is Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Generalized Anxiety Disorder causes the victim to experience continuous, excessive, and unrealistic worry and distress about day-to-day tasks.

Many changes happen in the body when a person becomes anxious. One of the first changes is that the individual experiences an increased breathing rate. Breathing rapidly throws off the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the body thereby, triggering additional physical anxiety symptoms such as dizziness, a feeling of suffocation, increased heart rate, and muscle tension. Learning to slow down breathing can help bring physical symptoms of anxiety back under control. In addition to

Injury. That is why it can be beneficial to bring in the Recovery-Stress Questionnaire for Sport as a tool for coaches to monitor stress/recovery states ” (Tessitore, Meeusen, Cortis, and Capranica, 2007). Even in the physical state of an athlete during preseason their psychology state is

Anxiety can be a very serious (disease/disorder) it is simply defined as an abnormal fear or tension which can occur without any obvious trigger or session; a recurrence, unwelcome and intrusive thought. Anxiety can also be defined as a subjective state of fear or tension. There are two types of anxiety, anxiety can provide signals that alert the body to trigger it to improve mental and physical performance

For High Performance athletes, there can be a lot riding on their results and performance in competition. If athletes develop an over-reliance on sporting success as a source of self-worth and identity, it can lead to serious emotional issues if things do not go as desired. Athletes often identify their self-worth with their ability to perform, and performance failure has been significantly associated with depression (Taylor, 2015 pg.11; Troijan, 2016, pg. 137) Athletes face many struggles and when something goes wrong it can leave them not knowing where to turn for help. They can be left with they feelings that they are nothing, undeserving, and alone. This may also exacerbate their feelings of seclusion, depression, or grief. Most athletes

Martinant and Ferrant (2007) aim to comprise clusters of athletes based on their anxiety and to compare them on their levels of perfectionism and self confidence. The authors used the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory - 2 and Sport-multidimensional perfectionism scale to gather results. The results determined five different clusters of athletes based on anxiety criteria. The subgroups not only separated by anxiety intensity and frequency, but also by direction of anxiety. For example, the anxious debilitators contained athletes with high somatic and cognitive anxiety levels with low anxiety direction, which resulted in a debilitating effect. Interestingly, the anxious facilitator group endured the same level of intensity and frequency, but directed their

Stress is not only affected in the work place and at home, it is also affected during sports. There is a ton of pressure in many high school sports especially individual sports. Stress is the body’s way of