The Effects Of Competitive State Anxiety
Sidney, once a two-time Olympic medalist is certainly, not the only athlete who reports experiencing nerves when performing in his sport. Sidney was a highly skilled tennis player who at the beginning of his career won two Olympic gold models, and was ranked as the most competitive athlete in table tennis nationally. However, as time went by, he started becoming nervous in major competitive games that involved a massive number of spectators. As a high performing athlete, his fans expected a lot from him; his level of expertise was measured in every competition. The overwhelming pressure for successful performance made him develop high levels of tension, nervousness, and anxiousness before a competition. He constantly complained about not being able to get some sleep a day to a game. At some point he developed feelings that he was just not good enough; he could have trouble breathing, his muscles would become tense, leading to loss of focus and attention during competitions. As a consequent, his performance was greatly affected.
Introduction
Within the realm of sports, athlete’s physical abilities are often regarded as the contributing factor to successful competitive performance. Nonetheless, athletic abilities are just but a portion of complex components of what comprises success. In addition to talent and skills, competing with a mental framework that permits athletes to prosper regardless of hypothetically aversive psychological and environmental variables is essential. Sydney was participating in a sport that induces a lot of emotion and cognitive tension on athletes due to its task intricacy and situational demand. The sport is very reactive with the discontinuous task of short duration. Hence it requires very diminutive response frame often dictated by the high promptness of the ball. These elements forced him to employ advanced techniques to decide the suitable response and movement pattern needed to optimize performance. For this reasons, emotions were highly involved during any match session. Emotional instability can thus result in habitual faults that consequently affected his overall performance. In Sydney’s case, the pressure to perform well from spectators caused a high level of anxiety; hence though he was physically gifted, psychologically, he was lacking. Evidently, he was suffering from competitive state anxiety. Defined as “an unpleasant psychological state in reaction to perceived stress concerning the performance of a task under pressure,” anxiety is an emotional state that is experienced by athletes at all levels of sports.
Martens et al. (1990) define competitive state anxiety as a situation-specific multidimensional paradigm encompassing of somatic and cognitive elements. Competitive state anxiety is characterized by amplified levels of psychological arousal, fear, tension, and apprehension (Cox, 2011). Anxiety adversely affects athletes on sports performance as well as well-being. Multidimensional anxiety model forecast that somatic and cognitive anxiety differentially affects sports achievement: there is a conceptual direct association between cognitive state anxiety and performance and a minimal influential, inverted-U association amid somatic anxiety and performance. Mitigating competitive state anxiety has been one of the major goals of psychological interventions. This paper examines the effects of competitive state anxiety and different intervention techniques to help in improving performance.
Background
Anxiety is an issue that has consistently been researched in the arena of sports psychology; it has become the most extensively studied psychological variable that affects athletic performance (Cox, 2012). Within the world of sports, cognitive anxiety is commonly caused by negative performance evaluation such as fear of failure, injury, or negative social evaluation leading to negative self-evaluation. For example, Sidney’s anxiety was caused by the perception that he will not perform well during the upcoming competition, he became worried that he was not good enough to win the competition. The pressure to perform was overwhelming especially after a period of success. In contrast to cognitive state anxiety, somatic anxiety is an emotional and psychological feeling that originates from unconscious arousal (Morris et al., 1981). Feelings of nervousness characterize it before the competition, for example, an elevated heart rate, butterflies in the stomach, or clammy hands (Martens et a1., 1990).
Anxiety also expresses the interpretation of arousal. Arousal is a psychological state that comprises simulation and a feeling of eagerness or readiness. Gill and William (2008) stated that anxiety is experienced after the valuation of arousal. They argued that competitive state anxiety is characterized by arousal that is discerned as worrying, resulting in the sense of uneasiness. Even though anxiety and arousal are different, advocates of some theories state that it is necessary to contemplate them as the same construct (Cox, 2007). One such theory is the one-dimensional theory such as Drive theory and Inverted-U Hypothesis; they are foremost theories that analyzed the relationship between arousal and performance where anxiety was contemplated to be present at high capacities of arousal. The drive theory suggests a direct relationship between arousal and performance; where if an athlete is appropriately skilled, their performance will be enhanced if their competitive drive is aroused. Inverted U-Hypothesis recommends a quadratic curve to make the relationship explicit: as arousal elevates, performance is enhanced but only to explicit point at the tip of the Inverted-U beyond which performance diminishes. The multi-dimensional model coined by Martens (1990) is based on the comparison between somatic and cognitive anxiety. It states that: there is Inverted-U relationship between somatic anxiety and performance; there is a linear, but negative relationship between performance and cognitive anxiety; and somatic anxiety declines once the athlete exhibit levels of performance, however, cognitive anxiety persist in case confidence is lacking. Martens et al. (1990) established competitive state anxiety inventory-2 (CSAI-2) to compute the intensity of cognitive and somatic anxiety. Along with somatic and cognitive anxieties, the researchers included self-confidence subscales in CSAI-2.
One of the treatment variables that have been indicated to reduce competitive state anxiety is the use of cognitive-behavioral interventions or psychological skills (Mallalieu et al., 2006). Self-confidence has been shown to impact anxiety management by protecting the athletes against the enervating effects of anxiety. Cognitive confidence management strategies such as mental rehearsal, positive self-talk, and thought to stop and some of the preferred techniques athletes use for anxiety intervention and treatment. Relaxation strategies result in minimized intensities of anxiety and related symptoms (Flecher and Hanton, 2001). Similarly, the use of multimodal psychological skills packages such as goal setting, relaxation, and imagery have been reported to be the most effective in the treatment of competitive state anxiety.
Recommendation
Relaxation is one of the best methods that Sidney can use to reduce both cognitive and somatic anxiety. Once he has learned the techniques of relaxation, bodily responses can easily be connected with specific behaviors and types of performance, and then anxiety can be regulated depending on the bodily response. One of the techniques for administering relaxation is the use of progressive muscle relaxation coined by Jacobson (1938, as cited by Williams and Harris, 1998). Since Sidney develops tensed muscles before any major games, this technique will help him to tighten and loosen various muscles groups which could result in refreshed, increased energy as well as alertness. The purpose is to train the muscles to become responsive to the various degree of tension, which is beneficial before, during, and before a match, especially for short duration of time between events. Progressive muscle relaxation before the competition is also effective to help the athlete stay alert especially since he had trouble sleeping at night before a big competition. Meditation can also be used as an effective method of reducing both somatic and cognitive anxiety, which also helps in improving sports performance.
Even though relaxation is highly effective, best results are experienced when used in conjunction with imagery focusing on relaxation. Research conducted by page, sime, and Nordell, 1999 shows that imagery is beneficial in performance enhancement as well as reducing state anxiety, maintain self-esteem, and facilitate readiness. Imagery is the capacity to create or re-create a particular experience using the senses. Sidney can use imagery to gain the opportunity to see and believe in his own success which will help him in building confidence in his perceived sports ability. Imagery process comes from the recall of information from memory. The recalled information can be used to re-create an event, such as previous successful performance to help increase confidence for an upcoming competition. That information can also be used to re-create unsuccessful performance to analyze positive and negative aspects of the performance to improve on it during the next game. Imagery can also be used to create new experiences when used with imagery focusing on relaxation. This will enable him to create an ideal performance in his mind in advance to become accustomed to the competitive environment. Visualization should be preceded by relaxation and should be realistic as possible. Visualization can be administered by watching past recorded performances, the outcome and the response over several trials appears to heighten the ability to focus and concentrate on the task. Imagery is also important because one can control their arousal levels through it.