Essay Anxiety in Sports

Our thoughts, diet/nutrition, exercise, rest, environment and physiology have a positive or negative impact on us which affects how well we perform and feel. In the world of sports, this is very easy to demonstrate because the mind/body connection provides you with immediate feedback. When you are positive, your performance excels. When you are negative, your performance is adversely affected. With various types of distress, or

In this chapter, various psychological skills are addressed, but they are presented in a straightforward and approachable manner that is beneficial for athletes that are new to the content. Chapter 5 focuses on areas outside of more traditional sport, including the military and individuals training for triathlons or ultramarathons. Primarily, this chapter discusses goal setting and other methods of preparation, such as imagery and mindfulness. Michael Jordan is the topic of Chapter 6, “Air Comeback”. In this chapter, Afremow breaks down Jordan’s hall of fame induction speech, pointing out each of the seven L’s each time they are

Common factors that can contribute to performance anxiety include; fear of performance failure, negative social evaluation and/or physical harm, as well as disruption of a well learned routine (Cox, p.201, 2007). The effects of these factors can be further heightened in correlation with importance of an event, or the level of competition. These fears and feelings of anxiety may affect the athlete’s perception of their abilities and hinder their self-confidence, which can be detrimental to their performance. Patterns of perfectionism can also lead to sport-related anxiety, mainly involving setting exceptionally high performance standards of oneself (Cox, p.202, 2007). Setting high standards can often be beneficial to a performance, but athletes that succumb to unrealistic thoughts, that nothing but a perfect/ideal performance is good enough, are more likely to experience negative emotions and heightened levels of anxiety due to the discrepancy between ideal and current self/situation (Koivula, Hassmén, Fallby, 2001).

Coaches learn how their athletes get motivated and use that information to keep them motivated when they are training which lets the athletes become better. Most athletes enjoy receiving criticism from their coaches because it lets them know what their weakness are and motivates them to fix them making them better athletes. Fear of failure affects the athletes performance because it can cause them to lose their focus and therefore not being able to make quick decisions in the game. Athletes who experience a lot of anxiety can cause them to make mistakes and the only way to overcome their anxiety is to try and understand where the anxiety may be coming from. There are a couple of types of anxiety which are mentally or physically types. Their muscles may become tense making it impossible for them to perform correctly, they may also have a lot of negative thoughts running through their heads which may cloud their judgment. Most athletes can never get rid of the anxiety but they can control the level of it and use that energy to perform better in their

The effects of optimal arousal and performance has been studied extensively in psychology. Throughout sports psychology it is known that there is an optimal arousal level at which athletes perform their best. In previous studies surrounding the relationship between emotional states and performance, have been examined using the individual zone of optimal functioning (IZOF). IZOF is a sport-specific framework that describes the relationship between emotional experiences and success on the basis of individual patterns (Ruiz, Raglin, & Hanin, 2015). In a review done by Ruiz et al. (2015), it was found over 183 IZOF based studies making it one of the most popular models for an analyzing subjective experience and athletic performance. From past research the IZOF model has found that anxiety heavily influences performance of athletes and each athlete has an individually optimal level of anxiety, which with probability will lead to a successful performance (Hanin. 1978, 1986, 1989).

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

“Too much stress, or bad stress, can cause performance anxiety, which hurts your health and does not allow you to play relaxed, confident, and focused in competition,” (Cohn). Pressure added from an athlete’s coaches, parents, and teammates, can become overwhelming for a student to maintain. Team dynamics can directly affect an athlete’s performance during the game. If an athlete is not performing at their best, they run the risk of not play in future games and causing disappoint to the team. Issues between teammates are often not expressed on an individual basis, but are kept to themselves and never addressed, which is a contributor to the many reports of depression and anxiety in student-athletes (Putukian). With many other stressors present in a student-athletes day-to-day life, the added pressures of team dynamics and performance can result in the development of a mental illness. Over 50% of male athletes and over 60% of female athletes face heavy stress related to their sport in the form of pressure to win, extreme anxiety, and fear (Stress). The stresses of having to do well, not only for yourself, but for the overall team, causes many student-athletes to carry stress into their

They will also realize that student-athletes are responsible for taking care of their business on and off the field. There was a study that found that almost half of the male athletes and slightly more than half of the female athletes, who were involved in the study, implied that stresses like pressure to win, excessive anxiety, frustration conflict, irritation, and fear affected their mental and emotional health (Humphrey et al., 2000). This is important to know because this can later or even immediately affect a person’s confidence and self worth. Freshmen are not the only class that deals with stress, which will affect their performance. Although these stress factors are brought to their attention early in their careers, most do not seek help nor do they find a solution to their problem. It is important that coaches have sport counselors that sit in and talk with these often to insure they are doing ok. These athletes are psychologically and physiologically hurting and need

Mesagno & Mullane-Grant studied the effects of pre- performance routines on 60 elite soccer players, their performance was looked at under both high and low pressure with some of the athletes being provided with pre performance routines, measuring levels of state anxiety (Mesagno & Mullane-Grant, 2010). The pre performance routine consisted of cue words, deep breathing, temporal consistency and extensive pre-performance routines that consisted of finding optimal arousal levels, behavioural steps and focusing on eternal zones of scoring (Mesagno & Mullane-Grant, 2010). Extensive pre-performance routines were the most successful form of intervention in Mesagno & Mullane-Grant’s study in reducing the choking in performance and decreasing the athletes levels of state anxiety (Mesagno & Mullane-Grant, 2010). This strategy is similarly seen in Wang, Callahan & Goldfine’s study looking at psychological interventions (Jin Wang, Callahan, & Goldfine, 2003). In which they suggested the use of psychological approaches including mental imagery, attentional training, self-talk in order to prevent choking in athletes, by decreasing distractions and anxiety levels (Jin Wang et al.,

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

● What are three ways to recognize anxiety in athletes? There are three fundamental ways to recognize anxiety in an athlete--behavioral and physiological symptoms, and testing. The first two require the coach and athlete to have a sound and trustworthy relationship with connection and the ability freely communicate and expose their vulnerabilities. Testing requires the involvement of a sport psychologist or consultant to administer the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT), for examples, to assess individual differences in the perception of competitive situations. Such as test can identify the anxious athlete and further define the type of anxiety (Vernacchia, McGuire, & Cook, 1996).

In Kouli, Bebetsos, Kamperis, and Papaioannou (2010), their gaps are centered around looking at different emotional aspects the athlete already has. Instead of only the four emotion categories of ____ it is stated that the research on the future should advance the four emotional categories and look at the possibility of an athlete experiencing anxiety or what their motivational factors are, such as whether it is intrinsic or extrinsic (Kouli et al., 2010, p. 194). Likewise, Grandjean, Taylor, and Weiner (2002) wanted to look at confounding variables that may have influenced the results. Despite the vault being the wrong measurement, the possibility of other factors being present amongst the athletes is not unlikely. Those influencing factors could be unreported injuries, expectations (to win or lose), and being overextended or exhausted from the competition (Grandjean, Taylor, & Weiner, 2002, p. 322). Fransen et al. (2015) had many points in the discussion section that suggested ideas for future research. The first being that future research may investigate how perceptions of previous performances, persuasive actions of the coach or athlete leaders, and by the enthusiasm expressed by the team members affect players’ team confidence within a game and as such the subsequent team performance (Fransen et al., 2015, p. 229). They also mentioned the idea that a future study uses different information gathering methods.

In Inverted U theory, there is an optimal level of performance then after that the athlete’s performance will start to deteriorate. Catastrophe theory however suggests that there is a decline in performance resulting from the combination of high cognitive anxiety and increasing somatic anxiety.

I propose that the mental skills training for the tennis athletes will improve the athlete’s self- confidence so that cognitive anxiety is reduced so that athletes can focus their attention to important stimuli, and their somatic anxiety is seen as facilitative. Jones et al (1995) stated that viewing anxiety as facilitative leads to superior performance, whereas viewing it as debilitative leads to poor performance. The multidimensional anxiety theory states that cognitive anxiety has a negative linear relationship with performance. It states that the athlete’s attentional focus is negatively being affected as a

Research has illustrated that athletic competition has a strong influence on psychological development, impacting an individual’s formation in areas such as self-esteem, body image and overall well-being (Anshel, 2000; Findlay & Bowker, 2007; Haugen, Safvenbom & Ommundsen, 201; Peden, Stiles, Vandehey & Diekhoff, 2008). A large sector of this research has specifically analyzed the outcomes of negative experiences within athletics, especially those high in stress and therefore resulting in potentially detrimental consequences for athletes. A major source of stress within athletics is due to potential and veritable athletic injuries due to overuse, during-game accidents and other competition/training related afflictions (Hanson, McCullagh & Tonymon, 1992). Approximately 3-5 million injuries occur due to athletics each year (Smith, Smoll & Ptacek, 1990), and the prevalence of such injuries suggests that the trauma experienced could pose a significant threat to athletes, both physically and psychologically, a phenomenon that warrants further investigation.