Stress – Managing Competition and Day to Day Stress

Athletes today have many things that can cause them to feel stressed and as a result not perform nearly their best. With a lot of riding on results, pressure and constantly improving competition, it’s no wonder athletes are having a more difficult time dealing with stress. Too much stress can keep an athlete from performing well and is very draining on the nervous system. This makes a big difference since every second and inch can be the difference.

It’s important to remember that how we think and what we think determines how we feel. How we feel greatly determines what we believe,  how we behave and how well we perform. Being able to stay calm and relaxed will not only let you focus all your energy on doing your best, it will also give you an edge over the stressed out competition.

Stress as automatic as it may seem, is usually a response created by the athlete. Most of the time by unhelpful internal chatter.  They say things to themselves over and over again, usually very quickly in anxious voice. Another reason is over thinking and planning based on problematic scenarios. From my experience being and working with athletes, they perform their best when they are having a good time and are enjoying the process.  However,  I worked with a lot of athletes who before an important competition, would think of every bad thing that could happen and every mistake they can cake. They will also start to changing their usual game plan and what they trained for, to something different they have not been preparing for.

Many athletes will discover that in their mind they are literally bombarded with pictures of problem scenarios, in which they are making mistakes, are ridiculed or badly outmatched by their opponents. They will repeat replay these scenarios in their mind over and over all night. Many are not even aware that they are doing this, only noticing how they feel and not realizing what is creating these feelings.

Stress can be resolved once the athlete learns how to relax in those situations that used to spark a stressful response. I help athletes relax by changing what they are thing in their mind and how they are thinking it. I teach them how to change the scenarios in their mind, as well as how to slow down their inner thoughts and dialog. I also show them very powerful physiological tools, such as breathing techniques that automatically calm their mind and relax their body.  The beauty of this approach is that this is an accelerated process for change where most athletes notice major benefits even in the first session.

Next steps…