Mental Toughness Essay

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

According to James Loehr, a famous sport psychologist, mental toughness is defined as the ability to constantly maintain a perfect performance state during the heat of competition (Loehr, 1986). Since then, Goldberg (1998) has well-defined mental toughness as the ability to stand high in the face of difficulty, and being able to rebound from repetitive setbacks and failures. Fletcher and Fletcher (2005) defined mental toughness as the ability to manage with various

An article produced by psychologists around the United States says that sports/athleticism makes people remember and react faster than the average person. A person's athleticism can shape a person's mindset and sharpen a person's skills in whatever they pursue in the future. Making effective decisions while under any amount of pressure is a skill to be tested rather than a typical IQ test because in the story of "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, the main character Rainsford, finds himself in a serious life-or-death situation where he has to think fast and effectively to get out of the predicament. Rainsford thought of an effective way to get out of the situation that he had found himself in and in the end got out of the predicament by using his time wisely and reacting to what he deemed best fit in such little time. Whether he was going to lose to his capture or win against him, he used his skill effectively to get out of his situation.

Therapist introduced the educational lecture this morning topic Mental Toughness revised the Grit perspective. Grit almost perfectly describes qualities every successful person possesses, because mental toughness builds the foundations for long-term success. For example, successful people are great at delaying gratification. Successful people are great at withstanding temptation. Successful people are great at overcoming fear in order to do what they need to do. Of course, that doesn't mean they aren't scared--that does mean they're brave. Big difference. Successful people don't just prioritize. They consistently keep doing what they have decided is most important. All those qualities require mental strength and toughness--so it's no

Physical sporting injury and the treatments in place are much published within literature today. However, there is little attention paid to that of the psychological treatments needed by sporting athletes and also the fears and emotions they might feel during the injury process and/or on return to full participation of their chosen sport. While the physical injury may be treated effectively and athletes are at the stage where returning to sport is permitted, they may be apprehensive or carry a fear about the possibility of returning to training and play (Herring 2006). In 1997, Crossman stated that effective injury management requires an understanding of the psychological processes involved and the knowledge of the strategies that can affect healing. In 2006, Herring backed up this statement believing that team physicians must be considerate of psychological factors to a similar extent as that of physical when treating and coordinating care for injured athletes. Psychological factors have been shown to be associated with the recovery and rehabilitation period following sports injury, but less is known about the psychological response associated with returning to sport after injury.

The field of sports psychology is only beginning. A short while ago in 1898 an experiment that was conducted by Norman Triplett successfully discovered a positive correlation between a biker’s performance and a social component or audience. Since then the only major progress has been the sports psychology lab established at the University of Illinois in 1925. The man responsible for the lab Coleman Griffith has also offered courses that teach the nature of sports psychology. Griffith’s research focuses on the factors that effect athletic performance such as “reaction time, mental awareness, muscular tension and relaxation, and personality”. Fortunately, a new study has surfaced the Psychology

This study takes a different approach when it comes to improving and maintaining the mental health of the athletes when injury is involved. Some may consider being mentally tough to be a positive attribute of an athlete. However, having too much “mental toughness” may be detrimental to certain athletes. Since mental toughness is related to positive coping methods and injury response, it is more likely that these athletes who have high mental toughness to participate through an injury. This may cause further

Walking onto the field, Person A complains about all the condition coach makes them do, and complains about how long practices are. This is a person who doesn't want to work hard and doesn't have the right mindset to compete with the best athletes. Person B, walks onto the field with a Great attitude and thinks that practices should be longer, and puts in the right amount of work to be better than the guy next to him. You might be thinking, “ Ones just a better teammate, the other one is just looking out for themselves.” But what is the difference between them? Here is the answer; Mental toughness.

Perspective is another part of mental strength, and it allows you to analyze the immediate issue objectively to understand better how to react to it. Coaching can help you imagine life as you wish it to be and what steps to take to make it reality. Imaginative activities such as image streaming, artistic endeavors and dream-work will help you analyze images that you create on your own accord. When you participate in activities such as these, you realize that your subconscious mind is the key to the perspective you are in search of to deal with situations in an objective manner.

Today in sports athletes endure many mental and physical obstacles from there competitive environment. Many of today's best athletes work with sports psychologists to help them handle the pressures found in this competitive atmosphere. One question that athletes ask is, why cant they play in big games as well as they anticipate themselves doing? Sports psychologists feel that spending all their time on body conditioning and athletic skills will not ensure that athletes reach their peak performance.

If you've ever had a serious medical procedure performed on you, then you know that your recovery doesn't end when you leave the hospital. Often, significant physical issues remain that require short-term rehabilitation programs and other healing support. They also require significant alterations to your lifestyle and mindset.

“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

Jones et al. (2002, 2007) has contributed to the understanding of mental toughness and its definition. Utilising qualitative methods to interview 10 elite athletes in a three-stage process, consisting of a focus group, interviews, and a rank order task. The focus group consisted of three athletes with the goal to define what mental toughness is and identify attributes of what they believed

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