Sport Psychology: Stress Management Flashcards
What is stress?
A negative response of the body to a threat causing anxiety
What is eustress?
A positive response of the body to a threat
What type of effects can stress have?
Cognitive and Somatic
Cognitive examples of stress?
Anxiety, fear and aggression
Somatic examples of stress?
Sweating, shaking and feeling sick
What is the stressor?
The cause of stress
What can stressors include for athletes?
. Injury
. Important games
. Very good opponents
. Rewards such as prize money, contracts
. Fear of failure - being watched by significant others, role models, scouts
4 ways to help somatic stress?
. Biofeedback
. Progressive muscle relaxation
. Centering
. Breathing control
What is biofeedback?
Using a device to help recognise the physical changes that happen under stress. It measures heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, temperature or electrical activity. It helps the performer recognise when they are stressed and they can use techniques to calm down
What is progressive muscle relaxation?
Alternating a period of muscle tension and relaxation. Muscles are tensed, held and then relaxed. You should work from the extremities to the core.
What is centering?
Breathing control whilst relaxing the chest and shoulders using controlled breaths. Slow breathing diverts attention away from the stressful situation
What is breathing control?
Controlling and concentrating on the rate of depth of breathing. This allows the performer to relax and be less distracted
6 ways to help cognitive stress?
. Thought stopping
. Positive self talk
. Imagery
. Visualisation
. Mental rehearsal
. Attentional control and cue utilisation
What is thought stopping?
Using a trigger to remove unhelpful thoughts. This helps redirect to more positive thoughts. It must be practiced
What is positive self talk?
Replacing negative thoughts about performance with positive ones. This can help to focus on a tactic and can help with negative thoughts
What is imagery?
Recreating a feeling of successful movement. Can be the formation of mental pictures of a good performance. Can involve creating a calm place
What is visualisation?
Using a mental image of the skill. Can help to overcome pressures
What is mental rehearsal?
Going over the moments in your mind. Best in a calm situation.
What is attentional control and cue utilisation?
Higher the stress, the less information processed
. Attentional control - changing the focus of attention to detect relevant cues
. Attentional narrowing - less information is absorbed as stress and arousal increase
. Cue utilisation - the ability to process information is directly linked to the level of arousal
Under stress you focus less on cues from the environment and miss key cues affecting decision making known as attentional wastage resulting in reduced performance
At lower levels of stress more information is absorbed and performance is successful
What is important about visualisation, imagery and mental rehearsal?
. It can be internal - kinaesthesis and emotions of the movement, experiencing the feeling/sensation of the movement
. It can be external - environment, details of the pitch and opponents, seeing yourself complete the movement
What is Niddefer’s model of attentional focus?
It is when the performer must choose the right attention of style for the right situation. This allows unrequired information to be filtered and relevant info is focused on.
What are the 4 styles of Niddefer’s model?
. Broad – attending to several stimuli with wide vision
. Narrow – focusing on one or two cues.
. Internal – inner thoughts
. External – looking at the environment.
What are the two dimensions of Niddefer’s model of attentional focus?
. How many cues are being focused on = broad or narrow
. Concerned with where the focus is placed = internal or external
What does a broad and external model look like?
Many cues concerning environment, it is fast, paced, open game environment
What does a broad and internal model look like?
Many cues concerning the performer
What does a narrow and external model look like?
One or two cues concerning the environment, concentrate on specific object, limited cues
What does a narrow and internal model look like?
One or two cues concerning the performer
