Imagine your soccer team reached the state finals, after months and years of hard work you guys are so close to achieving your dreams. It's down to the last penalty, and you, the goalie, must save the shot to win the championship. Your entire school traveled to see this game, your team stands on the field, tired and eagerly anticipating your save. Your parents are sitting in the second row of bleachers, watching and waiting for you to make them proud. Suddenly, you become aware of every little feeling, the cool air, the sweat on your palms, and your heartbeat quickening with every second. You can’t stop thinking about how everyone will react if you miss.
This is a common experience for most student athletes, whether the situation is similar, or has similar effects. The bottom line is the amount of pressure that builds up in their minds during critical moments in their sport. This phenomenon is known as sports performance anxiety, or competitive anxiety. Research shows that anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of athletes struggle with performance anxiety, yet mostly all athletes suffer from certain symptoms.
What causes performance anxiety?
The Yerkes-Dodson law explains how stress and anxiety affect performance. It explains that increased arousal can benefit performance until a certain limit, after that, too much arousal harms performance. This applies to sports performance anxiety, as athletes may face either too little or too much arousal causing their performance to diminish. If someone experiences low arousal, they may find the sport boring or uninteresting which would lead to them not caring about the results or not putting in as much effort. Too much arousal would lead to someone being too afraid or anxious about performing or competing, which stems from overthinking. This could also lead to someone freezing up or experiencing anxiety. Overall, overthinking and other symptoms of general anxiety can cause sports performance anxiety as well. There are external pressures as well, such as overbearing parents or coaches, toxic relationships between teammates, or a past experience of failure. In addition, someone who suffers from other mental health disorders may experience performance anxiety.
The Smith and Smoll Model describes sports performance anxiety well, as it displays how multiple dimensions of anxiety can feed into one another.
Mental Element: You may begin worrying about how difficult your upcoming performance or competition is, and already begin thinking about the consequences of losing before it's even began
Physical Symptoms: As anxiety builds, your body may begin experiencing fight or flight, with symptoms such as excessive sweating, a fast heartbeat, shaking hands, and more
In the Moment Impact: The combination of physical and mental symptoms cause distraction and increasing worry. This could lead to actual bad performance which would only worsen performance anxiety symptoms for the future.
Some common physical signs of sports performance anxiety are:
Tremors or shaking, your hands could be shaking while holding a ball, etc
Racing heartbeat, certain hormones like adrenaline and cortisol make your heart beat faster as your body deals with stress
Hyperventilation or feeling like you can’t breathe
Muscle tension, muscles can cramp or tighten especially in the head
Stomach cramps or digestion issues, when your body is in fight or flight mode, it stops focusing on digestion which can cause stomach pain and other problems
Some mental signs include:
Intense fear of failure, the mind jumps to the worst case scenario and worries about failure before anything has happened
Overthinking, simple actions may seem hard because your mind is over analyzing every action which pulls your focus away
Reduced self esteem, one typically begins to doubt their abilities and their confidence lowers
Gradually induced disinterest towards performances or competitions, this is usually caused by sensations of dread and fear
Ways to Handle Performance Anxiety:
Positive Self Talk
Simply repeating positive affirmations and reminding yourself of them can make a huge difference. With this comes making sure to ignore and reduce negative self-talk. Some examples of both include replacing “I’m playing terribly today” with “I will think of what I practiced and play a great game” or replacing “I just want to go home” with “I’ll focus on every moment and try my best”
Meditation
Meditation is shown to have significant benefits on mental health. There are many forms of meditation, but they all rely on shifting your focus to a specific topic, thought, or nothing at all. It helps you practice focusing on one thing, and ignoring negative, distracting, thoughts. It also helps you bring your mind to the present, and not send it spiraling down a rabbit hole of thoughts.
Positively Distract your Mind
Distracting your mind with something that you enjoy such as listening to music, watching a tv show, or talking to someone helps it focus on positive experiences. In addition, it can encourage or motivate you to perform better as well
Professional Support
It's important to seek professional support or guidance when it feels like you're not getting better. There are many forms of professional help, such as therapists, counselors, help programs, and more. Some signs that it may be time to reach out include the presence of panic attacks, self harming, mood swings, and more. Professional support only improves your mental health, and there are many options available.
Overall, sports performance anxiety is a common phenomenon that many young athletes face. It's common among professional athletes as well, and affects both mental and physical well being, however there are ways to help reduce it, and improve one's mental health for the future.
