Sport And Exercise Psychology: A Critical Introduction

Becoming more aware of anxiety: interpreting arousal signals

constructively

Despite their talent and experience, many athletes have a poor understanding of what
their body is telling them when they are anxious. In particular, they need to be educated
to realise that anxiety is not necessarily a bad thing but merely a sign that they care about
the results of what they are doing. Without such education, athletes tend to make the
mistake of misinterpreting physical signs of readiness (e.g., a rapid heart beat, a surge of
adrenaline) as harbingers of impending disaster. Therefore, sport performers must learn
to perceive somatic arousal as an essential prerequisite of a good performance. Some
players realise this intuitively when they concede that they cannot play well unless they
feel appropriately “juiced” or pumped up for a contest. In summary, the first step in
helping athletes to cope with anxiety is to educate them as to what it means and how to
detect it. The psychological principle here is that awareness precedes control of
psychological states.

Using physical relaxation techniques: lowering shoulders, slowing down

and breathing deeply

In the heat of competition, athletes tend to speed up their behaviour. The obvious solution
to this problem is to encourage them to slow down and relax whenever tension strikes. Of
course, this advice must be tailored to the demands of the particular sport in question.
Indeed, the feasibility of using physical relaxation techniques such as progressive
muscular relaxation (see practical tips offered by Williams and Harris, 1998) depends
heavily on the amount of “break time” offered by the sport in question. For example, in
stop-start, untimed sports like golf or tennis, there are moments where it may be possible
to lower one’s shoulders, flap out the tension from one’s arms and engage in deep-
breathing exercises. Interestingly, some professional tennis players use a relaxation
strategy whereby they visualise an imaginary area (e.g., behind the baseline of a tennis
court) which serves as a relaxation zone where they can switch off mentally during
breaks in play (see also Chapter 5 for a discussion of mental imagery in sport). However,
this procedure may be impossible to use in athletic activities where play is fast and
continuous (e.g., hockey). Also, another caution is necessary when teaching relaxation
skills to athletes. In my experience, relaxation tapes do not work effectively with many
sport performers as they are perceived as being too passive (see Box 3.7).

Box 3.7 Thinking critically about.. using relaxation tapes with athletes

Relaxation tapes are often recommended to athletes who suffer from excessive anxiety,
But do these tapes really work? Unfortunately, in my experience, such tapes are rarely
effective with athletes. In fact, I recall seeing one anxious performer trying to “fast
forward” his way through a relaxation tape!

Critical thinking questions
If anxiety has at least three different components (i.e., cognitive, somatic,
behavioural) are all of them affected by a relaxation tape? If not what aspects of anxiety

"Psyching up" and "calming down": anxiety in sport 91