Overcoming Performance Anxiety
Master techniques to control your anxiety and achieve peak performance by understanding and managing your arousal levels.
In sport psychology, arousal refers to your general state of activation, ranging from deep sleep to extreme excitement. It’s not an emotion itself but plays an important part in how you experience emotions. Unlike emotion, arousal doesn’t have a direction and isn’t inherently positive or negative. Your interpretation of your activation state transforms neutral arousal into a positive or negative emotion.
Anxiety is one of the most important emotions you’ll deal with because it has a large impact on your performance and mental health. Unmanaged anxiety can lead to poor performance, burnout, and even long-term mental health issues.
Given our framework about emotions, you can see anxiety as a relatively high arousal level with a negative interpretation. For example, if you’re a pitcher, you might feel your heart racing and your breathing increase when you see the next batter (increased arousal). You interpret this high arousal level as negative because you’re worried about making a mistake and allowing the batter to get on base.
The Importance of Arousal Awareness and Interpretation
Before you can control your anxiety, you need to become aware of your arousal levels during practices and competitions. This can be done through self-monitoring. Learn to recognize how you feel and how different emotions and mindsets affect your performance. This process can take time because you’ve probably been taught to ignore the signals your body sends and the emotions you feel.
The process shouldn’t be rushed. Trying to manage anxiety without understanding your own patterns is like attempting to get through a maze while blindfolded. Just as completing a maze requires seeing its twists and turns, effective anxiety management involves recognizing your emotional responses and physiological cues.
Once you have a solid understanding of your typical arousal levels and emotions, you can begin to learn techniques to control your anxiety. Similar to techniques discussed last week in choking under pressure, there are techniques for calming both your body and mind. The most important will be a combination of the two, learning to reduce arousal levels while reinterpreting them as positive rather than negative.
Techniques to Calm Your Body
Somatic techniques focus on reducing overall arousal levels, lowering physical tension to calm your body's physiological responses to a given situation. By controlling these physical symptoms, you’ll be less likely to interpret the arousal as negative, allowing you to better manage your overall anxiety levels.
Progressive Relaxation: Relax Your Muscles, Relax Your Mind
Progressive relaxation involves tensing and then relaxing specific muscle groups, moving systematically from one major muscle group to the next until all muscle groups are completely relaxed. The goal is to develop the ability to relax on-site during competition. This technique helps reduce physical tension and can be particularly effective in high-pressure situations.
Step-by-Step Tension Release: Start with your feet and work upwards, tensing each muscle group for five seconds and then releasing for 30 seconds. This systematic approach ensures that all muscle groups are addressed, reducing tension throughout the body.
Daily Practice: Consistent practice helps you quickly achieve relaxation during competitions. Integrate this into your daily routine to build the habit. Start with 20 to 30 minutes, then gradually decrease as you can better identify and release tension.
On-Site Application: Once mastered, use this technique during breaks in the competition to maintain low arousal levels. For example, during a time-out in a basketball game, take a moment to progressively relax any tension in your body.
Breath Control: Harness the Power of Your Breath
Breath control focuses on deep, slow, complete breathing to trigger a relaxation response. Using a 1:2 ratio of inhaling to exhaling will force your breathing to slow down. By emphasizing the exhalation phase, your body is forced to relax. This technique can also be used quickly, making it ideal for time-outs or breaks in the action, allowing you to quickly regain composure and focus.
1:2 Breathing Ratio: Inhale for a count of four, exhale for a count of eight. This extended exhalation phase activates the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation.
Focus on Exhalation: Emphasize the exhalation phase to enhance relaxation. This helps in reducing heart rate and calming the mind.
Timed Practice Sessions: Incorporate into your daily routines, especially during stressful moments. For instance, practice breath control first thing in the morning for a few minutes to start the day with a calm mindset.
Biofeedback: Understanding Your Body's Signals
Biofeedback involves using electronic monitoring to provide visual or auditory feedback of physiological responses, such as muscle activity, skin temperature, respiration, or heart rate. This feedback helps you become more aware of your autonomic nervous system and learn to control your reactions. Neurofeedback, which focuses on brainwave activity, is a specialized form of biofeedback. Initially, you may depend on bio/neurofeedback to understand your physiological responses, but over time, you’ll learn to maintain awareness and control without the need for constant feedback.
Device-Assisted Training: Use biofeedback devices to track physiological changes. These devices provide real-time data, helping you see the immediate effects of your relaxation techniques.
Self-Monitoring: Gradually reduce dependency on devices while maintaining awareness. You can learn to recognize your body's signals and adjust your techniques accordingly.
Mind-Body Connection: Understand and control your body's reactions to stress. For example, by observing changes in heart rate, you can practice breath control to lower it effectively.
Techniques to Calm Your Mind
Cognitive techniques focus on changing the way you think about and respond to anxiety, changing the interpretation of your arousal. By altering your mindset, you can reduce the impact of anxiety on your performance.
Relaxation Response: Find Your Mental Calm
The relaxation response is a form of meditation that promotes keen awareness, effortlessness, relaxation, spontaneity, and focused attention. This technique teaches you to quiet your mind, concentrate, and reduce muscle tension. Practicing this technique regularly can help you maintain a calm and focused state, even in high-pressure situations.
Quiet Environment: Find a place with minimized distractions and stimulation. This setting allows for deeper concentration and relaxation.
Comfortable Position: Sit in a position that can be maintained for a while. A comfortable posture prevents physical discomfort from interrupting the meditation.
Focus Word: Use a mental device, such as a single word or phrase (e.g., relax, calm, ease), repeated during exhalation. This repetition helps anchor your mind and reduce wandering thoughts. If your mind wanders, just bring it back to your focus word.
Reframing: Change Your Mindset, Change Your Game
Reframing involves changing the way you perceive and interpret your anxiety. By shifting your mindset, you can view stressors as challenges rather than threats. This helps reduce the impact of negative thoughts by reinterpreting arousal as positive, which in turn reduces anxiety and improves performance.
Positive Self-Talk: Replace negative thoughts with positive affirmations. For example, instead of thinking, "I can't handle this pressure," you might say, "I am prepared and capable."
Perspective Shift: See anxiety as an opportunity to perform better. View stress and high arousal levels as a motivator and sign of preparedness.
Cognitive Restructuring: Challenge and change negative beliefs about anxiety. This involves identifying irrational thoughts and replacing them with realistic and positive ones. For instance, if you think, "I'm going to mess up this penalty kick," challenge this by reminding yourself of your extensive practice and replace it with, "I've made this shot many times; I trust my skills and can handle the pressure."
Systematic Desensitization: Gradual Steps to Overcome Anxiety
Systematic desensitization helps you replace nervous reactions (e.g., racing heart or rapid breathing) with a calming response when faced with anxiety triggers. This process helps you become less reactive to stressors over time. Although beneficial, this process is usually best done with a professional who will ensure it is done correctly.
Relaxation Foundation: Learn and practice deep muscle relaxation techniques. This foundational step ensures that you can achieve a relaxed state before confronting anxiety-inducing scenarios.
Step-by-Step Exposure: Create a hierarchy of 5 to 10 scenes ranging from least to most anxiety-inducing. This gradual approach makes it easier to confront and overcome each level of anxiety.
Imagined Practice: Visualize each scene while using relaxation techniques until anxiety is reduced. For example, if you’re a basketball player afraid of free throws, start by visualizing standing at the line, then progress to imagining the crowd and pressure of a game.
Integrating Techniques: A Comprehensive Approach to Anxiety Management
Anxiety impacts both the mind and body, so combining somatic and cognitive techniques often yields the best results. This holistic approach ensures you can manage stress more effectively by addressing both physical symptoms and mental challenges. By blending these strategies, you can develop a well-rounded toolkit to maintain optimal performance under pressure.
Practical Examples of Blended Techniques
Here are a few ways to integrate these techniques for maximum benefit. Each athlete is unique, so these examples are just starting points to get you thinking about what might work best for you:
Muscle Relaxation and Positive Self-Talk: Start with progressive relaxation to reduce physical tension, then use positive self-talk to reframe anxiety as excitement. This combination helps you feel both physically relaxed and mentally confident.
Example: Before a race, you might progressively relax your muscles, then mentally repeat affirmations like "I am strong and ready."
Controlled Breathing and Gradual Exposure: Begin with breath control exercises to calm your body, followed by systematic desensitization to gradually expose yourself to anxiety-provoking stimuli while maintaining control.
Example: If you’re a tennis player, practice deep breathing to calm your nerves, then visualize playing in front of a large audience while staying relaxed.
Biofeedback and Meditation: Use biofeedback to monitor physiological responses during meditation. This can help you see the immediate benefits of your relaxation techniques and adjust as needed.
Example: During biofeedback training, you can use meditation to lower your heart rate and see the real-time effects on a monitor, reinforcing the effectiveness of your technique.
Conclusion
Managing anxiety is crucial for you as an athlete aiming to achieve peak performance. By becoming aware of your arousal levels and interpreting them positively, you can harness your anxiety to improve your performance.
Somatic and cognitive relaxation techniques provide effective strategies for managing anxiety. Techniques such as progressive relaxation, breath control, biofeedback, meditation, systematic desensitization, and reframing help you control your physical and mental responses to stress. Additionally, blending these techniques allows you to create a comprehensive approach to anxiety management, ensuring you perform at your best under pressure.
By incorporating these strategies into your routine, you can achieve both optimal performance and maintain your mental health.
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