What is Sports Anxiety and Why Does it Happen?
For everyone that plays sports, we all know how it feels right before the game when you can barely breathe or you’re just super anxious or jittery. This is one of the most common experiences as an athlete. For some, it might just be pregame nervousness with a bit of an adrenaline rush and some jitters, but for others, it can become more severe and doesn’t just affect them before a game but is a constant fear and worry.
Some symptoms include tightness in the chest, nausea, feeling overwhelmed, intense fear of failure, trouble focusing, and reduced confidence. These are more intense feelings that can take a bigger part in your life by being a continuous feeling. Instead of nervousness helping you focus and get energy for your performance, sports anxiety usually hinders your ability to perform your best.
All sports require training and discipline to get better, but training yourself mentally to perform your best is also such an important part that most people don’t acknowledge.
How Can You Manage Sports Anxiety?
Knowing all these things, how to actually help yourself is the biggest part that is going to lead to a happier and healthier life and performance in your sport. The best thing to do is first find a trusted adult to help you find someone to talk to or be that person to talk to.
- One of the biggest things that comes with sports anxiety is negative self-talk and the fear of failure. Try changing your negative self-talk and turning it into optimistic and positive self-talk.
- Kicking that fear out of your mind and trying to lift yourself up before a game is probably one of the biggest things you can do to combat this.
- Making sure you are confident in yourself is the best thing you can do to work on your game and on your mental health.
With the help of the people around you or a professional, dealing with sports anxiety will become easier and easier.