The Best Way to Combat Anxiety

Setting goals, concentration, and imagery are basic mental strength capabilities which are crucial in sports performance.
 
However, what does an athlete do exactly whenever worry and anxiety find their way into their thoughts at and during a competition and jeopardize their performance? Symptoms of nervousness include things like sweaty hands, rushing heart, edginess, tight muscles, doubts, worry, as well as trouble concentrating. 
 
These tend to be the typical experiences for a lot of competitive athletes and are particularly disturbing when they occur right before and especially during competition. Make no doubt about it, this stress and anxiety WILL have a detrimental impact on overall performance.
 
And so, what can athletes do?
 
Change Your Perception
 
When anxiousness was talked about previously, it had been stressed that on occasion, stress and anxiety may harm performance, but not necessarily all the time. Sadly, it's often the case that when an athlete experiences anxiety or nervousness before a competition, he or she automatically thinks, “oh no, I am nervous…this is not good…this is going to end badly.”
 
Being nervous and stress should not necessarily be an “oh no occurrence,” as anxiety doesn’t always hurt performance. In fact, various theories help us understand the relationship between anxiety and performance and suggest that anxiety can actually help performance—up to a point.
 
Think about it from a useful standpoint. Haven’t you found that occasionally a little nervousness or anxiousness gets you primed to compete?
 
Of course you have.
 
For example, the boost in arousal before a competition can elevate your heart rate and raise your body temperature, helping your body’s physiological systems get ready for the event. So, be careful in “labeling” any apprehension you experience as damaging and something you need to abolish.  
 
Instead, realize what you are experiencing and change your point of view regarding anxiety and its role on performance.
 
See anxiety as something that can help improve your performance and take the necessary steps to keep control of it.
 
Establish Your Most Favorable Anxiety Levels
 
If some anxiety and nervousness seems to help performance (at times), but too much anxiety hurts performance, what are you supposed to do?
 
How much nervousness is the right amount?
 
The answer…it depends on you.
 
That is, the best possible anxiety levels are individualized—some athletes perform best with little anxiety, others with modest anxiety and still others with elevated anxiety levels. Think back on your past competitive experiences and begin to access which level you performed best under.
 
Think back to before your better performances and take note on how nervous or anxious were you? What were you specifically thinking about and feeling? Now go back to your inferior performances and do the same. Write them down…just don’t think about them.   
 
You can even at a point score your responses (e.g. nervousness = 0-5 and performance = 0-5). This will give you a comparison. You’ll then be able to see patterns emerging that connect certain levels of nervousness to levels of performances. Now, think about duplicating or modeling the exact and identical level of anxiety that produced the best results, as opposed to thinking “oh no” when experiencing pre-competition anxiety.
 
You will need to learn, practice, and implement these anxiety management skills regularly. The skills to manage anxiety are fairly basic and easy to understand, but they are hard to put implement effectively, especially when they are needed the most.
 
Think about this… How many times do you still see an elite level athlete tensing up and missing a critical field goal, a shot on goal, or overthrowing a ball in a baseball game? 
 
Yup…it happens to the best of them.
 
What Type Are You?
 
If you’re more prone to be overwhelmed by the physical symptoms of anxiety (as described above), your pre-competition agenda should be to focus on calming your body using techniques like: controlled breathing, mild massage, stretching, moving around, or dynamic warm-ups to stay lose and relaxed.
 
If you’re more affected by the mental anxiety (the ‘monkey talk'), then your primary focus should be to calm the mind.  Successful skills include focusing on functional and process goals, using positive self-talk, meditating, listening to music, and reminding yourself of past successes. The key here is to distract yourself and not think about the “what if’s” and be worried, but to stay calm and focused.
 
There is a powerful method that does involve ‘outcome’ visualization. It’s been found that when an athlete, or any person, is anxious about a particular situation, they are seeing the end results as something they DON’T want (e.g. tripping in a race or not making the shot).
 
When this comes up, an easy method to reverse this is to see yourself a few minutes after successfully completing the task at hand. Actually visualize yourself seeing the successful completion of the event. Then come back to ‘now’ and see if you’re still anxious. If not, give your attention to process that will make this goal a reality.
 
An important note is that these skills and techniques must be practiced regularly. Practice them during your training sessions by intentionally setting up situations that will increase your anxiety. This will present you with a great opportunity to practice your anxiety management skills.
 
Understanding The Fundamental Causes of Anxiety
 
While it is important and critical to have skills to deal with stress sand anxiety, it is just as, if not more important to look for and identify the “why's” behind nervousness. Why are you more nervous today than you were before the game last week? What’s going on? Self-observation and questioning are crucial in understanding how and why you respond the way you do.
 
Various research studies have pointed out that the greater the importance of the event, the more pumped-up your anxiety will become. It’s worth noting that the importance is decided by you and no one else. This is why you’ll generally feel greater anxiety before the state championship or regional championship game than you will before a pre-season and apparently “meaningless” competition. In addition, the greater the uncertainty about the event (e.g. who will be there or who’s my competition), the more elevated your anxiety will be.
 
I know, you’re thinking, “of course there is uncertainty. That's the nature of the beast. There is always uncertainty around who’s going to win.” Sure, but you are able to control this uncertainty…the uncertainty in you mind. You need to recognize that while the outcome of an event is uncertain and is completely out of your control, you can however, control 100% of your performance!
 
So focusing on the outcome of the game (what you can’t control) instead of on the things you can control (your performance), will most likely, increase your anxiety. To manage pre-competition anxiety, it will be advantageous to focus on the controllable all aspects of your performance—to focus on what you need to do to perform at your best. 
 
The athlete that is focused on controlling his/her own skills and capabilities will be the one who wins the majority of the time.
 
Now you have some more mental strength tools to do your best and keep your nerves under control, now go use them.