How to tackle performance anxiety

 How to tackle performance anxiety

by Daniel Ferguson

It’s 7am, you’ve just woken up to that alarm you didn’t want to set, you feel tired and you don’t want to move. You’re dreading that cross country run you have at 9am and you can feel the ‘butterflies’ in your stomach just from the thought of doing it. You enjoy running for your athletics club, but these feelings overwhelm you. This is a classic case of performance anxiety. Now what is this and what are ways we can deal with it?



What is performance anxiety?


Performance anxiety is having feelings of stress and worry before a performance or competition. These feelings are usually due to the individual having high expectations of themselves and the anxiety results from feeling unable to meet these expectations. There could also be added pressures due to an audience. 


What does it look like?


Physical symptoms include:


  • Faster heartbeat

  • Sweating

  • ‘Butterflies’ in the stomach

  • Fatigue

  • Muscle tension 



From a more psychological perspective, performance anxiety includes: 


  • Negative self-talk: “I’m not going to perform well today,” “what’s the point in me turning up,” “I’m not going to enjoy it”

  • Overwhelming thoughts: experiencing a lot of thoughts at once racing through your mind

  • Self-doubt: which leads to negative self-talk, involving thoughts and feelings of not being good enough; not feeling worthy


Why could you be experiencing performance anxiety as an athlete?


What can help is knowing why you feel the way you do. As mentioned, a common factor is the demand to meet your own expectations, here are some more causes of performance anxiety:


  • Having a lack of experience: if you haven’t performed certain skills or performed specific events in your sport many times, it’s natural to have a sense of worry as you haven’t be in the situation many times before

  • Individual sports: as in the example at the beginning (cross country) performing in a sport where you compete on your own, it’s not as easy to cope with the pressures, as your performance solely relies on you

  • Having social anxiety: it could be a case of having social anxiety disorder (have a read of a verywellmind article to learn more about this)



Tackling anxiety

How can we tackle performance anxiety?


As an athlete you want to perform at your best, here are some ways to tackle performance anxiety and keep working towards reaching your full potential in your sport: 


Preparation


The emotions of performance anxiety tend to appear in the build up to a competition. So how can you prepare yourself before hand? What can you include in your pre-game routine? 


  • Rituals: there can be specific rituals that work best for an individual. This could be a certain order you put your kit on, a certain breakfast you like to eat, there are various examples, it’s about what works best for you. An example from myself is before a football game or an athletics race, I would put the number three up to the sky using my hands (it’s my lucky number). This can sound silly, but what helps, helps right?

  • Visualisation: this is the use of imagining a skill before performing it. So let’s say you’re a basketball player: close your eyes, imagine yourself dribbling the ball, running towards the net, and dunking the ball in. Familiarising yourself with the skill or event before hand, benefits you when performing it

  • Breathing: you can also develop breathing techniques into your pre-game routine, here’s a simple one: breath in for three seconds, hold for three seconds, breathe out for three seconds. You can repeat this as much as it feels comfortable. This will slower your heart rate, lower your blood pressure and increase oxygen flow, effectively chilling you out (read more with calm).


Have consistency in your preparation, this routine can become a technique of relaxation and confidence boosting before performing. 


Support system


Talking is always helpful, speak to your fellow teammates, your coaches and parents. You aren’t alone in experiencing performance anxiety, as much as it can feel like you are. It can be difficult to talk sometimes: you could always start by asking a teammate if they are a little nervous. As time goes on you can find those people who you appreciate talking to about the topic, helping you even further with anxiety.


Positive self-talk


Reinforce yourself with positive affirmations: “I am ready”, “I’ve got this”,  “I’m going to go out there and be my best.” During performance as well, if you find the anxiety is overcoming you, utilise the use of positive self talk cues: words/phrases you can say to yourself during competition to ease the tension. These can act as resets. Here’s an example:


You’re a cricket player and you’ve made your first 10 runs, but your starting to hit fewer runs due to self-doubt in your mind that you won’t keep up this form. In this case you can use your reset word/phrase. Make it personal to you. It can be silly too. I've heard someone use the word "sound" before as it reminds them of a funny memory.


Performance anxiety can hold an athlete back from being at their best. It's a case of your mind preventing you from reaching your full potential, pulling you away from performing optimally. I hope this blog helped in understanding what it is, why you can feel it and how you tackle it.




Find Daniel Ferguson on:
LinkedIn: Daniel Ferguson
Instagram: @danferguson_sp
Twitter: @DanFergusonSP


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