Sport has long been a significant part of human life. These activities allow people to meet their social, recreational, and fitness goals. Sports enthusiasts frequently strive for the best performance possible. It is widely accepted that athletes must be in an excellent physical state to perform at their best. For this reason, many professional and recreational athletes follow rigorous exercise regimens designed to improve their speed and stamina. To develop their skills, they also engage in intensive practice activities. For optimum performance to be attained, however, more than just physical preparedness and expertise are required. Psychological variables also significantly influence the degree of the athlete’s performance. One psychological condition that affects people’s performance and can produce either positive or negative results is anxiety. This article aims to look into how anxiety affects athletes’ performance.
Anxiety is multifaceted in that it may be categorized into various subtypes, such as trait anxiety and state anxiety. State anxiety is triggered in response to specific conditions, such as an athletic competition, but trait anxiety is a character trait that is mainly constant over time. Trait anxiety is defined by an innate propensity to interpret specific stimuli as frightening and, as a result, to react with heightened state anxiety when that stimulus occurs (Palazzolo, 2020). On the other hand, state anxiety is characterized by higher degrees of physiological reactions, trepidation, fear, and turmoil. Negative emotions and apprehensive or tense feelings are typical signs of cognitive anxiety.
Anxiety is characterized by mental disturbance, emotional control, agitation, uneasiness, and an uncomfortable and unsustainable psychological state. Anxiety affects athletic performance in both physical and psychological ways. Many hypotheses have been developed over the years on the connection between anxiety and athletic performance. The inverted U theory is founded on the notion that an athlete must be at a specific degree of arousal to perform at their best. However, the degree of performance will decline if that degree of arousal is exceeded. The same thing takes place when arousal levels are below ideal levels. It shows up physically, mentally, and behaviorally. The athlete’s degree of arousal affects how well they perform in sports. According to the drive theory, excellent performance and intense anxiety are mutually compatible, meaning that increased anxiety results in improved outcomes (Hackfort & Spielberger, 2021). The Smith and Small theory of anxiety state that anxiety can affect how the body reacts to stress in a competitive setting, which can impact results in various ways, including physiologically, socially, psychologically and intellectually.
The demands placed on athletes transcend far beyond the games they engage in. Additionally, the pressure that athletes experience from their loved ones, colleagues, and coaches impacts their mental health. Several athletes experience anxiety due to this pressure, which increases their probability of a mistake or complete meltdown. In rare cases, the anxiety is so bad that the person commits suicide (Hackfort & Spielberger, 2021). Athletic trainers collaborate with participants, the instructor, and a sports psychologist to help athletes comprehend why particular emotions and thoughts arise and then to put methods into practice to reduce them. The athlete receives pre-event, in-game, and post-game support from this team of experts in order to lower performance anxiety.
It might be challenging to distinguish between arousal and anxiety in the setting of sports because of their linked nature. As a result, while discussing an athlete’s performance, the phrases anxiety and arousal are sometimes used interchangeably. Behavioral, cognitive, and physiological tests can be used to measure anxiety. Behavioral measurements can identify the anxiety level that the athlete is experiencing. The athlete’s actions can be connected to the underlying stimulation components seen. In cognitive tests, anxiety is quantified by looking at how it affects focus (Hackfort & Spielberger, 2021). The self-focused concentration of the athlete deteriorates when mental anxiety levels are too high because the self-regulation mechanism is evaded. The bodily changes that occur as anxiety levels rise or fall can be tracked using physiological markers. The body’s exterior organs and neurological activity are activated and under the direction of the autonomic nervous system. When an athlete experiences high arousal levels, physical modifications such as respiratory elevation, pupil enlargement, and elevated heart rate take place.
The approach to the inverted-U concept is applied to a specific situation in sports depending on how difficult a task is. The inverted-U model by Yerkes and Dodson shows that an athlete needs a high degree of arousal to function well in simple tasks. On the contrary, less arousal is required for optimized performance on complicated tasks. The athlete’s skillset is more significant in determining the results of such activities. A player’s level of general arousal increases during a contest to the point where they struggle to focus on their sport due to the continuous bombardment of stimuli hitting their brain and their incapacity to defuse tension brought on by rising anxiety levels (Palazzolo, 2020). The player’s capacity to keep an eye on things and make sound judgments about how things are affected. Their information-processing system becomes overworked, which causes them to react incorrectly or slowly to emergent events. When this happens, the player loses concentration and switches their attention from what they intended to perform to something else. They become physically and mentally erratic.
Although excellence and anxiety seem to go hand in hand, additional psychological factors affect both state and trait anxiety. One of these factors that can significantly affect performance in a competitive setting is self-efficacy, or the conviction that one can manage their surroundings and results. The amount of self-efficacy a person will feel can be predicted using previous accomplishments, mastery degree, social circumstances, and perceptions of psychological and physical conditions (Palazzolo, 2020). Although the two notions are closely related, these situational circumstances help to separate self-efficacy from the more stable and universal quality of self-confidence. People with a high sense of their own abilities are more inclined to set high standards for themselves, expect better results, and think they can overcome obstacles in their path to success.
The kind of sport that a person plays is another element that might have an impact on anxiety. According to several studies, athletes who play team sports tend to be more anxious, dependent, and impulsive than those who play individual sports. Additionally, individual players have been found to be less vigilant, more sensitive, and imaginative compared to participation in team sports. Although intrinsic qualities like self-efficacy and teamwork can be linked to some aspects of performance and anxiety, it is also likely that external influences have a significant role in determining performance. These elements might include the spectators an athlete performs in front of and the venue where the competition occurs (Calleja et al., 2022). Previous studies evaluating a wide range of performance tasks have depicted that a hostile crowd affects performance negatively because it heightens anxiety.
In one method of relaxing, the athlete is instructed to lie down in a dimly lit space and imagine calming their body from the outside. The pulse rate, respiration, and blood pressure all return to normal. Massages on the body can significantly relax a person, especially if the anxiety attack is more intense. The athletes utilize the method of visualization to manage their anxiety. In this strategy, the athlete imagines themselves winning in front of the audience at the competition. Here are some other techniques for using visualization to reduce anxiety issues (Predoiu et al., 2020). The athlete is instructed to close their eyes and imagine every physical feature of their physique. The athlete convinces themself that all their body parts are healthy and functioning normally while seeing their own body.
To prevent anxiety from occurring during the games, muscle-relaxing exercises are performed. With closed eyes, the player performs this exercise by clenching a particular muscle in their thigh, stomach, arms, or face for ten seconds. After that, they proceed to do the relaxation of the muscles for twenty seconds. Completely eradicating anxiety might not be ideal because optimal performance requires a certain amount of arousal (Marwat, 2020). The more effective course of action is to provide the athlete with the tools necessary to manage his anxiousness. Athletes can reduce the tension that might lead to a subpar performance by using relaxation as an anxiety management method. In addition, positive self-talk has been shown in studies to improve sports performance. Positive affirmations can counteract anxiety’s dread-inducing negative emotions and thoughts.
Cognitive restructuring is a method for controlling anxiety levels. With the help of reasonable goals, the athlete learns how to manage anxiety during competition. This is predicated on the idea that what represents a threat depends on athletes’ expectations about their sporting prowess. Incorrect perceptions could result in unreasonable expectations, subsequently raising anxiety levels. The athlete can set reasonable expectations using cognitive restructuring to create good goals (Kaczkurkin & Foa, 2022). Another method for promoting relaxation is the use of breathing techniques and meditation. The athlete can obtain the desired degree of attention by using this strategy to lower anxiety and tension levels. A relaxation technique can aid in regulating anxiety when the athlete has anxiety-related symptoms, including a racing heart, elevated blood pressure, or trouble breathing.
It may be challenging to manage nervousness sensations since what is effective for one sportsman may not be effective for another. Athletes must therefore adopt a versatile strategy and make use of a variety of tactics. The degree of an athlete’s success depends on how they manage their anxiety (Palazzolo, 2020). Because of the high expectations placed on competitors and their obligations to achieve, anxiety is probably greater in extremely competitive sports than in comparatively non-competitive sports. Both individual and team athletes who participate in sports may display signs of nervousness.
In conclusion, extreme anxiety is defined by fragmented or distracted concentration because the athlete’s capacity to switch their focus easily breaks down. Therefore, maintaining sustained attention and engagement and managing anxiety are crucial for a person to perform at their best. Several methods for addressing the concentration and anxiety issues that athletes experience are discussed. Athletes who use these tactics to manage their nervousness and concentrate better perform well during athletic events.
References
Calleja, P., Muscat, A., & Decelis, A. (2022). The Effects of Audience Behaviour on Football Players’ Performance. Journal of New Studies in Sport Management, 3(1), 336-353.
Hackfort, D., & Spielberger, C. D. (2021). Sport-related anxiety: Current trends in theory and research. In Anxiety in Sports (pp. 261-267). Taylor & Francis.
Kaczkurkin, A. N., & Foa, E. B. (2022). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders: an update on the empirical evidence. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience.
Marwat, N. M., & Marwat, M. K. (2020). Effect of different types of anxiety on athletes Performance: Planning and Managing Strategy to cope with Athletes Anxiety. City University Research Journal, 10(3).
Palazzolo, J. (2020). Anxiety and performance. L’encephale, 46(2), 158-161.
PREDOIU, R., PREDOIU, A., MITRACHE, G., FIRĂNESCU, M., COSMA, G., DINUŢĂ, G., & BUCUROIU, R. A. (2020). Visualisation techniques in sport–the mental road map for success. Physical Education, Sport and Kinetotherapy Journal, 59(3), 245-256.
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