Stress Managment Flashcards
Stress
a negative response of the body to a threat causing anxiety
Distress
A positive response of the body to a threat
Cognitive
Psycological
Somatic
Physiological
Cognitive
Anxiety fear agression
Somatic
Swearing shaking feeling sick
Cognitive stress
Cognitive:
■ Psychological- Negative thoughts and feelings
■ Irrational thoughts
■ Can cause attentional narrowing (less information taken in and processed) this can be ok for the experienced performer who’s base response is the correct one but a novice doesn’t have the correct motor programmes developed
Somatic
Physiological- increased HR, Temp, Sweating, Nausea, Muscular Tension
Somatic - biofeedback
Using a device to help recognise the physical changes that happen under stress
■ Measure: Heart rate, Breathing Rate, Muscle Tension, Temperature or electrical activity
■ This helps the performer to recognise when they are stressed and they can use techniques to calm down
Somatic - progressive muscle relaxation
■ Alternating between a period of muscle tension and relaxation
■ Muscles are tensed, held and then relaxed
■ You should work from the extremities to the core
Somatic - centering
Breathing Control whilst relaxing the chest and shoulders using
controlled breaths
■ Slow breathing diverts attention away from the stressful situation
■ E.g a kicker at goal in rugby
Somatic - breathing control
■ Controlling and concentrating on the rate of depth of
breathing
■ This allows the performer to relax and be less distracted
Cognitive - -thought stopping
Using a trigger to remove unhelpful thoughts
■ Redirects to more positive thoughts
■ This must be practised
■ E.g Cricketer tapping the floor before a bowl
Positive self talk - cognitive
Replacing negative thoughts about performance with positive ones
■ It can help to focus on a tactic/ strategy
■ Used with negative thoughts
■ E.g A badminton player may talk to themselves about feet positioning/ Nerves before a race
Cognitive - -imagery
recreating a feeling of successful movement
■ Formation of mental pictures of a good performance
■ Can involve creating a calm place
■ Eg a Netball shooter can imagine the satisfaction of scoring a goal to win the game
Cognitive visualisation
Visualisation- Using a mental image of the skill
■ Can help to overcome pressures
Cognitive - mental rehearsal
Going over the movements in your mind
■ Best in a calm situation
■ E.g Trampolinists think of each move in a sequence before performing
Visualisation, Imagery and Mental Rehearsal can be
Internal (kinaesthesis and emotions of the mvt), experiencing the feeling/ sensation of the mvt
■ External (environment, details of the pitch and opponents) seeing yourself complete the mvt
Cognitive - attentional narrowing
6- Attentional Control and Cue Utilisation-
■ higher the stress 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 on less 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 successful
Attention in sport – focusing on relevant cues
Niddefer’s model of Attentional Focus
– Broad – attending to several stimuli with wide vision.
– Narrow – focusing on one or two cues.
– Internal – inner thoughts.
– External – looking at the environment.
Goal setting
■ Targets must be SMARTER
■ Specific – to the sport / performer
■ Measurable – quantitative / objective
■ Accepted / agreed – by performer and coach
■ Realistic / achievable – within performance capability
■ Time phased – long / short term goals / deadlines
■ Evaluate
■ Redo
