ANXIETY Arousal Arousal may be defined as a

ANXIETY

Arousal • Arousal may be defined as ‘a general physiological and psychological activation varying on a continuum from deep sleep to intense excitement’(Gould & Krane, 1992). • When we are bored, relaxed or asleep, we are in a state of low arousal. When excited, angry or anxious, we are in a state of high arousal. You can see from this that being in a state of high or low arousal is not in itself necessarily a pleasant or unpleasant experience. On the other hand, anxiety is by definition an unpleasant sensation.

• Arousal levels directly related to autonomic nervous system (HR, BP, skin conductivity, and respiration)

• Weinberg & Gould (1995) have offered the following definition of anxiety: ‘a negative emotional state with feelings of nervousness, worry and apprehension associated with activation or arousal of the body. We can thus think of anxiety as an unpleasant state of high arousal.

• Anxiety is a normal human emotion that everyone experiences at times. Many people feel anxious, or nervous, when faced with a problem at work, before taking a test, or making an important decision. • 'A negative reaction of a performer to stress, often leading to over arousal'

• Predisposition to perceive environmental situations as threatening ‘Anxiety occurs where there is a substantial imbalance between the individual’s perception of their ability and their perception of the demands and importance of the situation’.

Types • • Cognitive Anxiety Somatic Anxiety State Anxiety Trait. Anxiety

Cognitive Anxiety • Martens et al (1990) distinguished between two aspects of anxiety. • Cognitive anxiety refers to the anxious thoughts that accompany somatic anxiety. Anxious thinking involves worries, selfdoubts and images of losing and humiliation.

Cognitive Anxiety • When a sports person may think about concerns of underachieving from unpleasant thoughts. • Often the stage before somatic anxiety. • Often experience problems with concentration replaces mental images of success with failure.

Somatic Anxiety • When we are anxious, we experience the physiological changes associated with high arousal, including increased heart rate and blood pressure, ‘butterflies’ in the stomach, faster breathing and flushed face. We call the experience of physiological changes associated with anxiety somatic anxiety (from the Greek soma meaning body).

• Result of a performers negative perception of the body’s physiological reactions to stress. • Due to the reaction of their body to stress the performer • worries more. • Likely to have a queasy stomach and increased sweating.

• We can measure somatic anxiety directly by physiological means, or indirectly by self-rating inventories. Direct physiological measuresinclude urinalysis, galvanic skin response (GSR) and blood pressure testing. Elevated levels of certain hormones released when we are anxious (such as adrenalin) can be detected in urine. We also tend to sweat more when anxious. This can be detected by a GSR meter, which measures the electrical conductivity of the skin – the more we sweat, the better conductor our skin becomes. Our blood pressure also increases when we are anxious, and this can be measured by a sphygmomanometer.

State Anxiety Spielberger (1966) • State anxiety describes the experience of unpleasant feelings when confronted with specific situations, demands or a particular object or event. State anxiety arises when the person makes a mental assessment of some type of threat. When the object or situation that is perceived as threatening goes away, the person no longer experiences anxiety. Thus, state anxiety refers to a temporary condition in response to some perceived threat.

• State anxiety can be defined as a temporary disturbing emotional arousal as a result of recognition of a disturbing stimulus. A person usually recognizes that there is an unpleasant event of a certain kind and experiences symptoms of state anxiety as a result of facing such an event. • The athletes emotional state at any given time - variable from situation to situation

• State anxiety refers to the emotional state of anxiety (cognitive and somatic), typically experienced prior to and during ompetition. Martens et al (1990) have produced an updated questionnaire, the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory– 2 (CSAI– 2), based on the SCAT, which seeks to measure state anxiety before competition.

• Many people experience anxiety before speaking in public. For most people, these feelings of anxiety start before they begin speaking, continue during the speech but subside immediately after the speech ends. This is an example of state anxiety.

Trait Anxiety • Trait anxiety refers to anxiety as an aspect of personality. A person high in trait anxiety will be frequently anxious, almost irrespective of the situation. • Eysenck believed that some people are generally more anxious and moody than others because they are genetically programmed to react more to potential threats in their environment.

• Martens et al (1977) developed a self-rating inventory called the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT), designed to measure trait anxiety related to sport.

• Like state anxiety, trait anxiety arises in response to a perceived threat, but it differs in its intensity, duration and the range of situations in which it occurs. Trait anxiety refers to the differences between people in terms of their tendency to experience state anxiety in response to the anticipation of a threat.

• People with a high level of trait anxiety experience more intense degrees of state anxiety to specific situations than most people do and experience anxiety toward a broader range of situations or objects than most people. Thus, trait anxiety describes a personality characteristic rather than a temporary feeling.

• People with trait anxiety tend to regularly experience excessive worry and other anxiety symptoms in anticipation of future events. Trait anxiety can be defined as a long-lasting arousal in the face of potential threat. The symptoms of trait anxiety are similar to symptoms of neuroticism.

• Trait anxiety refers to the stable tendency to attend to, experience, and report negative emotions such as fears, worries, and anxiety across many situations. This is part of the personality dimension of neuroticism versus emotional stability.

Dimensions of anxiety • Most psychologist regard anxiety as a multidimensional construct with at-least three dimensions. Mental or cognitive, physical or somatic and behavioral.

Mental or cognitive • Cognitive anxiety involves worrying or having negative expectations about some situation or performance and engaging in task-irrelevant thinking as a consequence. • It refers to negative expectations and cognitive concern about oneself. • Cognitive anxiety refers to the anxious thoughts that accompany somatic anxiety. Anxious thinking involves worries, self-doubts and images of losing and humiliation.

• When a sports person may think about concerns of underachieving from unpleasant thoughts.

Physical or Somatic • Somatic anxiety refers to the physical manifestation of anxiety and may be defined as “one’s perception of the physiological-affective elements of the anxiety experience, that is indications of autonomic arousal and unpleasant feeling states such as nervousness and tension.

• When we are anxious, we experience the physiological changes associated with high arousal, including increased heart rate and blood pressure, ‘butterflies’ in the stomach, faster breathing and flushed face. We call the experience of physiological changes associated with anxiety somatic anxiety (from the Greek soma meaning body).

• When the athlete show such physical symptoms as increased respiration, tachycardia, feeling of butterfly in the stomach, etc it shows somatic anxiety symptoms.

behavioral • The third dimension of anxiety is behavioral. In this domain, symptoms includes tense facial expressions, changes in communication patterns (rapid speech delivery) and agitation and restlessness.

CAUSES OF ANXIETY IN SPORT • -fear of failing or a bad performance • -fear of bad feed back or evaluation points • -fear of the competition from the event • -fear of an injury occurring and the athlete having no control • Lack of confidence • Expectations

Event importance • The more important a sporting event is, the more stressful we are likely to find it. It is probably true to say, for example, that most footballers would find themselves more anxious competing in the World Cup than in a ‘friendly’. However, we must remember that it is the importance of the event to the individual that counts.

Trait anxiety • Some people are prone to suffer more anxiety than others, whatever the situation. This can be explained by genetics, but also by experience. Social learning theorists might explain trait anxiety as having been learned from adults in childhood.

Anxiety in sports contexts • When an athlete’s performance suffers in an important event, it is often because of too much worry about the outcome……being solely concerned with winning causes an increase in anxiety. ”

• Those who score high on measures of trait anxiety experience more state anxiety in highly competitive and evaluative situations. Through experience, an athlete with high trait anxiety can learn to cope with a particular situation and lower their state anxiety. Knowledge of a person’s level of trait anxiety will enable a prediction to be made about how they will react to competitions, being assessed and in threatening conditions.

• Drive theory was proposed by Hull (1943). The theory itself is complex, but its application to sporting performance is relatively simple.

• Drive theory has proved extremely useful in explaining why experts do better in competition and novices are more likely to crack under pressure. It has also given us an insight into how to optimise athletes’ arousal during training. However, drive theory fails to explain instances where even expert athletes become too aroused and make errors. It also fails to take account of the type of arousal experienced or psychological factors that may accompany arousal, such as cognitive anxiety.

Inverted-U hypothesis • By the 1970 s, psychologists were dissatisfied with drive theory and had turned to the inverted-U approach to explain the relationship between arousal and performance. The inverted-U hypothesis was originated by Yerkes & Dodson (1908). The idea is that for every task there is an optimum level of arousal. Performance peaks at this level and drops off above and below it. This is shown in Figure

Anxiety management techniques. • Imagery – by method of relaxing by creating mental images to escape the immediate effects of stress. The principle is to recreate an environment that is very relaxing. • Visualisation – the process of creating a mental image of what you want to happen or feel, locking into the ‘perfect performance’. This diverts attention away from the cause of anxiety.

• Attention control – maintaining concentration on appropriate cues. This aims to improve the performer’s ability to focus on appropriate cues then the number of errors caused by other distractions is reduced. • Self-talk – developing positive thoughts about one’s actions. Is vital that self talk remains positive and focus on selfinstructing motivational content.

• Biofeedback – information about the changes in physiological variables; the performer watches a monitor displaying changes in readings. E. G. heart rate, using a pulsometer or heart rate monitor. • Breathing control – using diaphragmatic breathing (breathing deeply) as a means of focusing on relaxation. Encourages full oxygen exchange, reduces the heart rate and lowers/stabilises blood pressure.

• Centering – using deep breathing as a way of refocusing your concentration. Requires the performer to focus particularly on the rate of breathing and maintaining a slow, steady pace. • Progressive muscular relaxation (PMR) – learning to be aware of the tension present in muscles and removing it by relaxing. This is done by alternating extreme tension that is held for a few seconds the releasing the tension to relax.

Goal Setting A technique used to control anxiety by directing attention away from stress and towards an achievable target. • Outcome goals – achievement of a particular result e. g. qualifying for the next round. Achievement will increase motivation but the performer cannot control the factors influencing the outcome e. g. officials, opposition and weather. Can lead to increase in anxiety if result is not achieved.

• Performance goals – the performer’s attempts are judged against others or even with themselves. E. G. achieving a certain time in a competition. Motivation will be maintained if not increased. • Process goal – concentrate on the performer’s techniques and tactics, process goals often influence performance goals. E. g. to perform a slower backswing during a bunker shot may well improve efficiency of the stroke.