Stress management

Question 1

Stress:

Answer 1

• most common emotion in sport
• experienced before or during games
• Stress doesn’t have to be negative
• Positive feeling of stress is known as ‘eustress’
• Happens when a difficult challenge occurs

Question 2

Eustress:

Answer 2

• Positive feeling of stress is known as ‘eustress’
• Happens when a difficult challenge had been overcome
• Can give future confidence and motivation

Answer 3

A cause of stress is known as a stressor

Question 4

Examples of stressors:

Answer 4

• injury
• playing an important match
• playing against good opponents
• playing to get an important reward (trophy/money)
• Fear of failure

Question 5

Cognitive stress:

Answer 5

• psychological
• brings negative thoughts and feeling
• can lead to concentration loss
• concentration loss leads to attention narrowing
• Means the ability to take information from the environment is reduced because of arousal and anxiety
• Information could be messed when a player is feeling stressed

Question 6

Somatic stress:

Answer 6

• physiological
• includes increased heart rate and increased sweating
• extreme cases can include nausea
• most damaging somatic response could be muscular tension as this can cause inaccuracy in performance

Question 7

Attention control and cue utilisation:

Answer 7

• stress causes performers to lose concentration and focus on incorrect stimuli
• As arousal increases, it influences the ability to take on cues known as cue utilisation
• Low levels of arousal = process lots of cues
• High levels of arousal = limited amount of cues processed (known as attentional wastage)

Question 8

How can attentional wastage be improved:

Answer 8

• Attachment styles
• by using selective attention the performer can control the style of attention required
• Broad and external = picking up a wide range of cues from the environment
• Broad and internal = mental analysis of numerous cues
• Narrow and external = focus is directed to one environmental cue
• Narrow and internal = Mental practice of one or two important cues

Question 9

Psychological skills training:

Answer 9

• player trains and practices using cognitive stress management techniques
• sports psychologist help this

Question 10

Cognitive stress management techniques:

Answer 10

• Thought stopping
• Imagery
• Visualisation
• Positive self-talk
• Mental rehearsal
• Cue utilisation
• Psychological skills training

Question 11

Thought stopping:

Answer 11

• a learnt action to stop negative thoughts and redirect attention back onto the task
• This has to be practiced to be successful

Question 12

Positive self-talk:

Answer 12

• replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts
• positive self talk can help overcome bad habits

Question 13

Imagery:

Answer 13

• recreating a successful image of an action from a past performance
• gives performer the feel of an action and the positive emotions felt from the successful action
• imagery can also be used as a mental escape from stress by imaging a calm place

Question 14

Visualisation:

Answer 14

• uses a mental image of the skill being performed successfully in trining which can be re-lived in competition
• Internal visualisation = Looking at the emotions and feeling involved such as the sense of kinesthesia and satisfaction
• External visualisation = Players visualises performing the action as if they are on TV (concerns on the envrionment)

Question 15

Mental rehearsal

Answer 15

• Movement happens in the mind
• helps athletes with sequences of skills
• helps remember order of actions which reduces stress

Question 16

Types of somatic stress management technqiues:

Answer 16

• Biofeedback
• Progressive muscular relaxation
• Centering

Question 17

Biofeedback:

Answer 17

• Measuring device to recognise physical changes that happen under stress
• Hr and muscle tension can be measured
• eventually a performer can recognise the symptoms without using a measuring device

Question 18

Progressive muscular relaxation:

Answer 18

• Muscles are tensed and then relaxed from the periphery of the body to the core
• Using this correctly depends on the ability to hold tension in a muscle for an extended period of time
• If incorrectly used it can cause injury

Question 19

Centering:

Answer 19

• Form of breathing control
• Performer learns to relax the shoulders and chest whilst concentrating on breathing
• Diverts attention away from the stressful situation
• Once mastered, method can be used quickly and effectively