Athletic Anxiety

Even some of the best athletes experience negative self-talk in high-pressure performance situations.

Athletic anxiety, or sports performance anxiety, happens to even the most skilled athletes. It manifests itself in two main forms: athletes who freeze or 'choke' while performing in front of an audience, and athletes who become paralyzed when they fear their skills are not strong enough to outperform their competition in a specific event.

Performance Anxiety

When an athlete does not believe he is capable of top performance in a competition, he may succumb to his anxieties and not only fall short, but give a poor performance (compared to his capabilities). Graham Jones, a British sport psychologist, developed a formulaic model of athletic anxiety. His model purports that an athlete's individual predisposition to anxiousness is the determining performance factor between the competition (stress) and the athlete's belief in his powers of control. Anxious athletes tend to think negatively and in turn perform poorly, in effect self-fulfilling their negative thoughts.

Negative Self-Talk

Studies show that negative self-talk prior to competition can create anxiety in an athlete; studies also demonstrate that anxiety prior to performance can result in negative self-talk during the performance and in turn generate more anxiety. Athletes who give in to the power of negative self-talk begin to believe their ability is lesser than it is, or that their competitors are more deserving of the win. Some athletes, however, do not find negative self-talk to be detrimental to their performance, as it provides them with a quick way to vent their anxieties so they are better able to focus on the performance at hand.

Causes

One of the biggest causes of anxiety is the unknown, whether in life or in athletics. The end result of each competition is unknown until it happens; as written on Peak Performance, "sport is a cultural focal point because [it's] a theatre of unpredictability." Important competitions are likely to cause more stress and anxiety. Individual athletes (i.e. tennis) tend to have more anxiety than team athletes (i.e. soccer). Public or crowd expectation can also cause anxiety; teams playing at their home stadiums genuinely have an advantage (winning 56 to 64 percent of the time).

Symptoms

Anxiety is manifested in behavioral, cognitive (mental) and somatic (bodily) symptoms. Behavioral symptoms can include avoidance of eye contact, fingernail biting, face covering, poor posture, lethargy and even atypically extroverted actions. Cognitive symptoms may be less noticeable unless the athlete expresses himself. Such symptoms include confusion, imagining only failure, negative self-talk, lack of confidence, lack of concentration and feelings of heaviness and weakness. Somatic symptoms involve indications such as dry mouth, nausea, clamminess, pacing, constant need to urinate, insomnia and overall tension.

Control Strategies

Sports psychologists have numerous methods to help athletes control performance-related anxiety. Methods are not one-size-fits-all; certain strategies work well for some while others practice several before discovering the right one. Sports Imagery Training is a mental trial performance of a specific competition. Just prior to the event, the athlete imagines every aspect of it from beginning to end (i.e. how his body works and feels; the sounds, sights and smells around him). Mental rehearsal positively focuses the mind and keeps the athlete motivated prior to competing. Thought-Stopping is another positive strategy which demands an athlete's full awareness of his negative thoughts; as they occur, he is responsible for stopping and replacing them with positive ones.

References

• The Health Care Center: Looking at Sports Performance Anxiety
• Association for Applied Sport Psychology: Sport Imagery Training
• Encyclopædia Britannica: Negative Self-Talk During Sport Performance
• Peak Performance: Sports Psychology Techniques to Avoid Anxiety
• Peak Performance: Sports Anxiety Theory and Research