Stress in sport & Coping Strategies

In tandem with anxiety, stress can also be a big factor psychologically for athletes. In actual fact, anxiety can be one of the main contributors to the causing of stress. ‘Stress has been identified as crucial in sport, influencing performance as well as social functioning' (Jones & Hardy, 1990).

'Increased anxiety and burn-out are symptoms which have been associated to an inability to manage stress in sport, as well as decreased self-esteem and performance difficulties.’

Stress can come from internal or external factors, which may or may not be under the superficial control of the athletes themselves. 

'Athletes are increasingly being placed under demanding and extremely pressurised scenarios, requiring them to cope with stressors in order to become professional sports performers' (Holt & Dunn, 2004).

Along with this statement, Lazarus & Folkman (1984) added 'Psychological stress is a particular relationship between the person and environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well being'.

According to Andrew Wood (2013) 'Symptoms of stress can be divided into 3 categories:

• Physiological – Increased Heart Rate, Sweaty Hands, Muscle Tension.

• Cognitive – Perceptual Changes, Decision Making, Memory, Response Selection.

• Emotional – Violence, Withdrawal from the sporting situation, Anger.'

This shows the contrast between the sources of stress which the athlete can control with those that they are unable to. Just because athletes can be stressed, it doesn't necessarily mean it’s always a hindrance to their performance.

 Rory McIlroy (2011) states:

‘You’re always going to be nervous teeing it up in a Major Championship. It’s very natural and it’s a good thing, it means that you want it.’

Within every competitive atmosphere, athletes will always experience stress; some good and some bad. It’s down to the perception of the athlete themselves and how they act which determines the type of stress they endure and the affects it has. Stress can also be seen as excitement and anticipation for the event forthcoming which can be known as ‘positive pregame jitters’.

Eustress, is the good form of stress that Rory McIlroy was referring to, where athletes actively seek stressful situations1 that helps them increase their skill levels and focus their attention on certain aspects. The opposite type of stress is known as Distress. This is the bad form of stress and is normally what people think of when stress is mentioned. It is an extreme form of anxiety as a result of a perceived inability to meet personal demands set. included in this are personal, organisational and competitive stressors.

In terms of an athlete being under stress, stress affects an athlete and their performance in a four stage process which is shown below by Gill (2014):

Stage One is environmental demand. This is where the athlete would physically approach a football for example prior to a free kick or penalty and also the psychological mental placing of the ball in the athletes mind.

Stage Two is the individual's perception of the environment. This is the athletes own perception of the environment around them. The crowd, the noise levels and the opposition; just a few things that the athlete take into account in this stage.

Stage Three is the stress response from the athlete. This is based on the personality of the athlete and the outcome of the previous two stages. This is where they either seek out the stressful environments, or have characteristics that keep them away from those situations.

Stage Four is the behavioural stage. This is where the athlete presents their behaviour due to their perception of the last three stages. This reaction will depend heavily on whether the athlete has experienced eustress or distress in the previous stages.

The four stage stress cycle above is very simple but effective, as it allows athletes/coaches to identify how they cope in different situations and the emotions/stress they endure.

Within stress there are 3 different types of symptoms that can be shown, Class Notes (2016) show this below:

'Cognitive

·         Feeling irritable
·         Feeling frustrated
·         Feeling restless
·         Unable to concentrate
·         Easily confused
·         Memory problems
·         Thinking about negative things all the time
·         Having mood swings
·         Eating too much/when you’re not hungry
·         Negative self-talk
·         Feeling you can’t cope
·         No energy
·         Finding it hard to make decisions

Somatic

·         Muscle tension
·         Headaches, irritability, depression
·         Dry mouth, ulcers, pains in chest
·         Pains in shoulder, neck, lower back.

Behavioural

·         Drugs
·         Hostility
·         Fingernail chewing
·         Smoking
·         Impatience
·         OCD
·         Self-harming

·         Social phobia'

Attached to the symptoms surrounded stress are the two types of nervous system that are affected. Livestrong (2014) explains these:

'The sympathetic nervous system – aims to give us more energy and works by releasing hormones into the blood stream. The parasympathetic nervous system – aims to relax us and conserve energy and is activated once the stress has gone (homoeostasis)'.

Stress can have a huge impact on an athletes performance, especially negatively. So what can athletes/coaches do in able to combat this and implement coping strategies?

The first coping mechanism available to athletes is attention/concentration control. During sport, a lot of the time athletes/coaches will shout 'keep your eye on the ball' or 'keep the ball' comments like these are made to enable the focus and attention of the athletes. It's a simple method, but can be affective if used correctly.

In 1976, Robert Nideffer identified 2 different types of attention; width and direction. The width dimension ranged from broad to narrow and the direction dimension ranged from external to internal. The picture below shows the four types of attention available to an athlete and what they can focus on during competition or order to help stimulate and cope with stress and anxiety.

With this table available, the athlete can look at this and see what skills or environmental factors that they can learn to focus on and others that they can learn to ignore to enable their stress coping strategy.

Another coping strategy, is one of the most popular, which is imagery/visualisation/mental rehearsal (IVMR). This is something that many athletes try these days, with sports psychology having a huge impact on sport. This method is used to reduce anxiety whilst also increasing skill levels. Ensuring the athlete can envision the scenario whilst also practising it at the same time, will hugely benefit the athlete.

According to PDHPE (2013) (IVMR) is said to be useful for the following:

'Mental rehearsal has been found to be effective both in the acquisition of new sports skills and in the performance of well-learned skills. Many studies have found that a combination of mental and physical practice results in better performances than mental or physical practice alone. Mental rehearsal allows the athlete to

• focus the athlete
• practise old skills
• learn new skills
• gain confidence
• feel the experience
• experience success
• control anxiety and arousal levels
• train in any conditions
• find motivation
• concentrate and refocus
• prepare for training or competition
• develop coping strategies
• change self-image'

All of these points will help the athlete to be successful. All the point above being implemented through (IMVR) will hopefully ensure success for the athlete with decreased levels of anxiety and stress. Being able to visualise goals they have set themselves also links into this method. Goal-setting is something that is often used by athletes in order to combat stress focussing on a short term or long term goal can take the ease away from stress with the focus on the goal fully.

R Cox (2007) explains that;

'The seven coping dimensions and percentages of usage

• Psychological training (49.7%),
• Physical training and strategizing (15.6%),
• Somatic relaxation (14.4%),
• Hobby activities (7.8%),
• Social support (6.1%),
• Prayer (5.2%),
• Substance use (1.2%).'

Ensuring that one of these strategies, f not a multiple of them are followed and implemented by the athlete, then they will successfully reduce their stress and anxiety levels within sporting environments.