Forrester PE Dept

Mental factors

 

ANXIETY

 

Description

An unpleasant state of inner turmoil, often accompanied by nervous behaviour, restlessness, fatigue, concentration problems and muscular tension.  All affect performance in a negative manner, and need to be managed or controlled to aid effective performance. Anxiety, takes many different forms but within sport you may feel as though you are choking, you want to run away, cannot move your body in ways that you want. In short, you freeze when the moment matters.

 

Impact on Performance

Many athletes suffer from Sports Performance Anxiety, with this they may perform well in practice but then anxiety interferes with their performance.

It is usual to have pre-performance nerves, indeed, a certain level of physical arousal is helpful and prepares us for competition. But when the physical symptoms of anxiety are too great, they may seriously interfere with your ability to compete. Left untreated, it becomes a vicious cycle of negative thoughts and feelings followed by poor or inhibited performance.

 

In Football if a match is still tied at the end of extra time then players may have high anxiety levels during the resulting penalty shootout.  Pressure is on the players to score from their team, from the fans who want the team to be successful and the individual player who wants to win. In a Basketball game your team is trailing by 1 point with 2 seconds left on the clock. The player in possession must act quickly knowing that if they score their team wins and if they miss then their team loses.

 

SPOTY 2013; Andy Murray serving to win Wimbledon - 40 to 0 up in the final set, back to Deuce, then being break point down 3 times, before eventually winning. The thought of winning increased his anxiety and caused his performance to deteriorate, although he was able to manage the anxiety and eventually overcome it to be successful.