TECHNIQUES TO CONTROL STRESS AND ANXIETY IN SPORT
Anxiety and stress are two terms that we are unfortunately getting too used to hear. Fast-paced lifestyles and high demands from several fields lead to negative consequences on our mental health. In the case of high-performance athletes, this demand is also increased by multiple factors associated with their sports practice.
However, anxiety disorders or stress effects are not the result of a specific stimulus. In the same situation, different athletes will end up achieving different results. Even the same person will face it differently, in different moments in their life, following numerous strategies to cope with what many people have called the 21st century disease. Could anxiety become an unexpected ally of athletes?
What do we mean when we talk about anxiety and stress?
It comes as a surprise to see that anxiety by itself is not negative for our body. In fact, it is an emotion that prepares us for something important, causing an important activation at a mental and physical level. As simple as that. The objective of this reaction is none other than to “wake up” our body for an immediate response to that event that is not necessarily bad. The night before a game can trigger our anxiety in the same way than witnessing a dangerous event or imagining that we are going to fly by plane. Consequently, anxiety is not only a completely normal emotion, but it is also necessary for our body’s proper functioning. Intending for it to disappear is one of the most common mistakes of those who are affected by it.
Something similar happens with stress. Stress is generally the mechanism by which we prepare ourselves to face a new, demanding, or dangerous situation. Whether such definition is familiar to you or not, it is not by a feeling of déjà vu: anxiety could be defined as the emotional response caused by stress, although they are not exactly the same. Authors such as Dr Antonio Cano Vindel, president of the Spanish Society for the Study of Anxiety and Stress (SEAS), explain that “stress is what we experience when we have to solve a problem, and anxiety occurs when we anticipate obtaining a negative result”. Seen that way, good anxiety and stress management can be useful. And this is a key learning for any elite athlete. An excessive level of activation—and, therefore, anxiety and stress—can cause a significant decrease in sports performance: lack of concentration, tachycardia, etc. However, it is of no concern whether this level of activation is too low or not since our reaction capacity will decrease accordingly. The objective must be to strike a balance so that our activation values are tolerable and allow us to make the most of our performance:
Source: retrieved from Yerkes & Dodson (1908)
