Four Main Strategies For Dealing With Athletic Stress

As athletes become immersed in the sporting world, they are more prone to mental health related concerns as pressure and stress begin to build. Rigorous training, pressures to perform, media attention and large sums of money at risk all add to the damaging effects of stress on one’s mind. Dr. Barry Cripps, a chairman of sports and exercise within the British Psychological Society was noted saying, "Stress-related illnesses are extremely common in professional sports, and they are becoming more so as the pressures on athlete’s increase. The expectations are enormous and sometimes people cannot handle it" (Bran, 2012). Athletes are expected to perform to the best of their abilities and beyond and the pressures of these expectation often lead

It is said that the reason for student-athletes experiencing higher stress levels are because of their extensive time-demands, pressures to achieve, physical burn-out and conflict with teammates, coaches and teachers. (J. W. 2015). In one hand I believe that this overall statement is true, but on the other hand I believe the amount of stress depends on the individual and there involvement with their academics and athletics (Sudano, L. E., Collins, G., & Miles, C. M. (2017). With social stress, the

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

The whole purpose of this study is to compare the amount of stress college athletes experience to non-athletes. It is hypothesized that college athletes will experience a great amount of stress than non-athletes due to multiple reasons. Participant group, college athletes and non-athletes will complete a stress survey called “The Inventory of College Students' Recent Life

Children who participate in sports are developing rapidly in sports skills, sportsmanship, and psychologically, but does this come from organized sports are just nature’s process. Children develop emotional and social benefits from participating in sports. Children experience character and leadership development through peer relations leading to an increase in self-esteem and a decrease in anxiety levels. Children will get opportunities to experience positive and negative emotions throughout their practice and games trials. It is important for the coach to understand the “psychology of youth sports and physical activity participation” (Weinberg & Gould, 2011 p.516).

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

Psychology impact of sport injuries is a topic no one hears much about until an athlete is injured and goes through it himself/herself. High school athletes as well as professional ones both are exposed to injuries at any time, the impact of this injury might be the same. Getting injured is devastating for most athletes, what they don’t hear much is how bad it can get to them mentally. Depending on the injury, some athletes are able to return to the sport, others are not so lucky. When they are affected emotionally or mentally, it does not only affect them, but their team, the fans, and even the coaches. In most cases, these injuries and the rehabilitation process are often followed by psychological consequences which can impact the athletes’ well-being, as well as their chances of returning to their sport. The importance of sport psychology will be discussed throughout the paper to give a better understanding on how it affects athletes when dealing with a sport injury. Being aware of the psychological symptoms, as well as knowing how to avoid the effects could make a difference on someone. As well as knowing how important rehabilitation is when wanting to return to the game as soon as possible, if probable.

Sports—which involve emotion, competition, cooperation, achievement, and play—provide a rich area for psychological study. People involved in sports attempt to master very difficult skills, often subjecting themselves to intense physical stress as well as social pressure. research has expanded into numerous areas such as imagery training, hypnosis, relaxation training, motivation, socialization, conflict and competition, counseling, and coaching. Specific sports and recreational specialties studied include baseball, basketball, soccer,

Hatamleh (2013) examined the specific difficulties and coping strategies experienced by athletes during retirement (Hatamleh, 2013). Hatamleh (2013) obtained 52 athletes, 33 males and 19 females, from various national sporting teams in Jordin. The primary measure used in this study was the Athlete Retirement Questionnaire (ARQ; Sinclair & Orlick, 1993). Results indicated that most athletes (75%) experienced moderate to high levels of stress while they were competing (Hatamleh, 2013). After retirement, however, nearly 86% of the athletes experienced moderate to high

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

Many athletes would agree that they have felt butterflies in their stomach or a sudden rush of adrenaline before an important game. This feeling can either translate into legendary performances or monumental failures. According to Sharon D. Hoar (2007), to fully comprehend anxiety’s effect on performance, one must understand the discrimination between two unique sets of sources: trait and state anxiety, and cognitive and somatic anxiety. Anxiety symptoms are numerous and unique to every athlete. Hoar suggests that athletes might report cognitive symptoms (eg. Inability to focus), somatic symptoms (eg. Sweaty palms), or both. The author discusses a variety of sources of anxiety and argues that it can have both positive and negative effects

I believe that physical activity has declined due to the fact that a large majority of American’s have focused more on advancing their careers and taking care of their families that they fail to participate in any physical activity. According to the chapter 75% of Americans does not participate in any physical activity. Most people whether it's due to the type of job, attire they wear at work will spend more time outside of the gym then anywhere else. People also feel that supplements and different types of medications that people take also prevent them from a more healthier lifestyle. One major factor that contributes to obesity is mental stress. A lot of people do not put any thought into how important mental health affects all aspects of their life. Mental stress takes a toll on the body to include raising a person’s blood pressure, breathing issues and musculoskeletal imbalances.

Past research has seen the relationship between athletic injuries and psychological factors as essentially stress-related (1). In this sense, stress is predicted to produce increased state anxiety and consequently alterations in attentional focus and muscular tension. It is important to note that stress does not exist outside the individual “ not all people respond negatively to

Coping strategies refer to the specific efforts, both behavioral and psychological, that people employ to master, tolerate, reduce or minimize stressful events. There are two general coping strategies which have been distinguished. Problem-focused strategies are efforts to do something active to alleviate stressful circumstances, where as emotion-focused coping strategies involve efforts to regulate the emotional consequences of stressful or potentially stressful events. Typically, people use both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping in their stressful episodes, which suggests that both types of coping are useful for most stressful events (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980).

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