The text discusses the pervasive issue of stress in athletes, emphasizing its impact on performance and the need for effective stress management. It acknowledges that even seasoned professionals struggle with pressure, citing instances where athletes, regardless of their skill level, have faced challenges in handling stress during crucial moments in their respective sports.
The detrimental effects of stress on an athlete’s experience are highlighted, including impaired performance, diminished satisfaction in showcasing mastered skills, erosion of self-confidence, disruption of the joy of flow, promotion of interpersonal conflict, destruction of teamwork, increased risk of physical injury, and, in extreme cases, burnout leading to early retirement. The text underscores the prevalence of chronic stress problems among athletes, estimating that one-third of all athletes suffer from such issues throughout their careers. Additionally, it acknowledges that almost all athletes encounter occasional stress problems that can occur at inconvenient times.
To address these challenges, the text asserts the importance of coaches understanding stress and developing effective stress management strategies. It begins by dispelling common misconceptions about stress, such as assuming that certain situations are inherently stressful due to excessive competitive demands. The text argues that stress results not only from intense demands but also from the athletes’ ability to deal with them effectively. Another misconception discussed is the belief that stress is solely defined by physiological and psychological responses, with the text emphasizing the role of interpretation and appraisal in determining the impact of stress on athletes.
The stress process is introduced, building on concepts previously covered  about arousal and anxiety’s effects on performance. The stress process is identified as a substantial imbalance between perceived competitive demands and personal control over meeting those demands. The text explains that stress is subjective, dependent on how athletes interpret challenging situations based on their beliefs and coping abilities. The discussion refers to Lazarus’ Model of Stress, which outlines three key factors in stress appraisal: competitive demand, personal control, and coping strategies.
Competitive demand is described as athletes’ evaluation of how a challenging situation may affect their ability to achieve important goals. The more significant the goal and the greater the uncertainty about reaching it, the higher the competitive demand. Personal control refers to athletes’ perceptions of their ability to manage competitive demands and attain important goals. It is influenced by their belief in surmountable stress sources and their perceived performance capabilities. The text asserts that the balance between personal control and competitive demand determines stress levels and performance quality.
The appraisal process is linked to the types of coping strategies athletes employ, which can be categorized into problem management, emotion management, and maladaptive coping. Problem management involves reducing or eliminating stress sources through techniques like planning and pre-performance routines. Emotion management focuses on decreasing emotional distress and enhancing positive well-being, often through social support and relaxation. Maladaptive coping includes strategies that harm rather than help, like excessive venting of emotions or substance abuse. The text advocates for coaches promoting the use of problem and emotion management over maladaptive coping.
The effects of effective and ineffective coping on performance are discussed, with effective coping enhancing performance, allowing athletes to play at or beyond their current capabilities, and occasionally experiencing flow. Ineffective coping, on the other hand, impairs top-level performance, causing athletes to perform below their capabilities and potentially choking under high levels of negative emotions.
Personality and situational factors influencing stress levels are addressed, with traits like anxiety and self-confidence affecting athletes’ appraisals of stress. Athletes prone to high anxiety and low self-confidence are more likely to view situations as threats, while those with high self-confidence and low anxiety tend to see competition as a challenge. Situational factors, including the type of sport, the importance of the contest, and uncertainty of the outcome, can also impact stress levels.
The text concludes by highlighting the importance of stress management for coaches, as coaching is recognized as a stressful profession. Stress management is defined as the process of reducing or eliminating the negative consequences of stress, both physical and mental, to enhance emotional well-being and performance. Coaches are encouraged to teach stress management to athletes, with a focus on problem management strategies to eliminate stress sources whenever possible and emotion management to cope with stress during practice and competition. The proactive nature of problem management is contrasted with the reactive nature of emotion management, with the latter being used primarily during practice and competition to address stress as it arises. The overall message is that stress management is a skill that coaches can master and pass on to their athletes, contributing to enhanced mental toughness for both individuals and teams.
Problem Management is a proactive approach designed to reduce stress through various strategies such as competitive engineering, personal engineering, problem-solving, and the use of mental plans.
Competitive Engineering involves altering the situation to decrease uncertainty and minimize the inflated importance of an event. This is achieved by identifying factors that increase stress and finding ways to address them. For instance, reducing unnecessary uncertainty involves recognizing events that increase uncertainty, like factors beyond athletes’ control, and finding ways to decrease that uncertainty.
Another aspect of Competitive Engineering is removing excessive importance attached to competitive outcomes. This includes understanding intrinsic and extrinsic rewards for winning and finding ways to decrease the exaggerated significance of events.
Personal Engineering focuses on increasing personal control, and this can be achieved by aligning goals with process and performance rather than focusing solely on outcomes. Athletes are encouraged to set realistic, controllable goals related to their skills, effort, and preparation. By doing so, they can enhance their personal control and reduce stress associated with outcome-based goals.
Enhancing performance capabilities is another dimension of Personal Engineering. This involves helping athletes gain confidence in their capabilities through physical and mental preparation, skill development, and lifestyle management. Ensuring athletes are physically and mentally prepared, have coping skills, and maintain a healthy lifestyle contributes to increased performance capabilities.
Developing problem-solving skills is an integral part of enhancing personal control. Athletes are taught to overcome obstacles by adapting their strategies and techniques when faced with changing situations, failed game plans, or unexpected challenges. This includes addressing technical and tactical problems through systematic practice and critique.
Mental Plans play a crucial role in personal control by providing athletes with predetermined, structured plans to cope with specific challenging situations. Athletes are encouraged to develop backup mental performance plans and a mental recovery plan, contributing to a sense of personal control and reducing stress.
Emotion Management is a reactive approach primarily carried out during practice or competition to handle stress triggered by negative thoughts or excessive arousal. Athletes can exert control over their emotional responses even when stress cannot be completely eliminated.
Basics of Total Emotion Management Packages (TEMPs) are introduced as a combined approach to handle both arousal-induced and thought-induced anxiety. TEMPs include a relaxation component to deal with physical anxiety and a self-talk component to counter negative thoughts, making them effective against various stress problems.
Proactive and reactive emotion management strategies are discussed. Proactive strategies help athletes develop greater emotional control and lower normal stress levels through activities like daily relaxation and self-talk scripting. Reactive strategies focus on maintaining composure and emotional control during demanding competitive situations.
Total Emotion Management Packages (TEMPs) are emphasized as comprehensive strategies to manage stress systematically. Athletes are guided to deal with stressful situations by chunking them into parts, setting realistic goals, maintaining a flow mind-set, and practicing TEMPs regularly to automate coping responses.
Automating component skills is crucial for the effectiveness of TEMPs. Athletes are trained to automate physical relaxation and self-talk skills to execute TEMPs instinctively, particularly in high-stress situations where automatic responses are common.
Developing an integrated coping response (ICR) involves creating a comprehensive strategy that quickly alleviates anxiety, whether triggered by negative thoughts or excessive arousal. Athletes practice ICRs until they become highly automated, especially the counterarguments that deal directly with negative or irrational thoughts.
Practice strategies for TEMPs include total immersion and gradual exposure. Total immersion exposes athletes to extremely stressful situations to help them adapt their skills to manage lower stress levels. Gradual exposure involves facing a series of situations arranged in a hierarchy, systematically increasing stress levels to develop the ability to manage highly stressful situations.
Selection of a practice strategy depends on factors like the sport, athletes, and the coach’s preferred approach. Both total immersion and gradual exposure are effective, and coaches may choose based on their observations and the athletes’ needs. The goal is to maintain motivation by balancing the pace of stress exposure and skill development.
Developing Athletes’ Stress Management Skills involves a combination of problem-management and emotion management strategies. The program to automate these skills follows three phases: education, acquisition, and implementation.
In the Education Phase, athletes are provided with general education on stress management, followed by personal education to enhance self-awareness of stress-related patterns. General education involves conveying information about stress management, common misconceptions, and the Lazarus stress model. Specific problem-management and emotion management strategies, such as personal engineering, competitive engineering, problem-solving, and mental plans, are discussed. Emotion management strategies, particularly Total Emotion Management Packages (TEMPs), designed to handle both types of anxiety, are introduced.
Personal Education involves helping athletes understand their current stress patterns. Coaches are encouraged to assign homework, including listing common symptoms of stress and using the Athlete Stress Management Assessment Form (ASMAF) to assess stress levels before and during events. This form helps identify how stress affects practice and competitive performance. Athletes evaluate their stress levels, optimal mind-set maintenance, and overall performance.
The Acquisition Phase focuses on three objectives: helping athletes develop basic emotion management strategies, constructing an integrated coping response, and mastering problem-solving skills. Basic stress management tools, including relaxation and self-talk, must be automated. The Integrated Coping Response (ICR) combines emotion management strategies in three steps: addressing mental anxiety, saying the transition word “so,” and alleviating physical tension. Problem-solving skills and mental plans are also emphasized to deal with recurring and less common competitive challenges.
In the Implementation Phase, athletes must practice their TEMP to automate stress management skills. This involves imagery rehearsal, simulation during practice, and automation in lower-level competitions. Imagery is an effective initial practice approach for rehearsing stress and using the personalized ICR to manage it. For gradual exposure, athletes create a hierarchy of stressful situations, rehearsing each one until mastered. Total immersion involves creating high stress through imagery and using the ICR to manage it.
Athletes are encouraged to try their ICR in real competitions, starting with less stressful ones and progressing to more challenging ones. The implementation phase involves a systematic approach to developing and automating stress management skills, ensuring athletes can effectively apply these skills in various competitive situations.