The Inevitability Of Anxiety In Sport

Accepting that competition anxiety is inevitable and knowing that you can cope with it

Sport has such a universal appeal, providing us with edge of the seat entertainment, nail biting close calls to underdogs proving us all wrong. The appeal with sport is this unpredictability, who is going to win, who is going to lose, and it is this unpredictability that bring about stress and uncertainty for the athlete. Some athletes enjoy this challenge and it spurs them on, for other athletes this can be the trigger for anxiety, they crumble under the pressure and allow the many detrimental effects of anxiety to affect their performance. Anxiety is a natural reaction that occurs in the presence of some perceived, real or unreal threat and human species have developed biological responses to aid in its survival in the face of threats in the environment. Walter Cannon in the early 1900’s coined this well-known biological response with the term fight or flight. Even though there is little threat to the athletes survival within the sporting arena,

It often causes people to perform well below their usual standard and can be considered as public enemy number one within the sporting world. For the athlete, anxiety can bring about a number of physiological responses such as increased blood pressure, pounding heart, increased respiration rate and butterflies in the stomach to name a few. Also, athletes demonstrate specific patterns of behaviour as a result of this anxiety such as biting fingernails, uncharacteristic displays of aggression and even playing it safe. Not only does anxiety have an effect physiologically but also a psychological effect, this can be recognised in an athlete as they demonstrate the effect it has on specific thought processes, such as loss of confidence, negative thoughts, poor concentration, fear, defeatist