Anxiety

• Anxiety - a negative emotional state, associated with feelings of worry and nervousness relating to arousal.

  arousal is not experiences as pleasant or unpleasant

  anxiety is an unpleasant state of high arousal leading to worry and stress
• Somatic anxiety:

  • anxiety experienced physiologically or of the body

  e.g

  sweating

  shaking

  increased heart rate

  nail biting
• Cognitive anxiety:

  • anxiety experienced by the mind

  e.g

  negative thoughts

  fear of failing

  overthinking

  cogntive anxiety triggers somatic anxiety
• Cognitive anxiety is the most crucial to determine the performers reactions to high levels of stress and anxiety

  Increases in cognitive anxiety will help performance if somatic anxiety is low

  so if the body is relaxed, but the performer is feeling anxious then this anxiety can help to improve performance
• Catastrophe Theory - high cognitive and somatic anxiety can lead to the catastrophe

  high anxiety and arousal causes sudden drop in performance

  e.g receiving a red card in a football game due to over arousal and anxiety
• Trait anxiety

  • personality that is stable and innate
  • general deposition to see certain situations as threatening
• State anxiety:

  • a persons condition of anxiety in one situation
  • temporary emotional response to a threatening situation

  e.g cup final, penalties

  trait anxiety determines the degree of state anxiety
• Competitive anxiety:

  • the worry or apprehension experienced during or about competitive experiences
• The sport competitive anxiety test (SCAT):

  • involves giving competitors a self report questionnaire to assess the anxiety they felt during competition
  • test measures competitive trait anxiety
  • reliable and useful in predicting how anxious a performer will be in future competitions (state anxiety)
• Zone of optimal functioning

  • important state of wellbeing
  • this zone s an emotional response that facilitates top performance
  • will occur at optimal arousal
  • often referred to as peak flow experience
  • activity is effortless
  • movements are automatic
• achieving the 'in zone' for top performers:

  be relaxed - arousal shouldn't be high, but optimal

  be confident - belief that you have great ability, pride and confidence. you expect success not hope for it

  be completely focused - absorbed by performance

  fun - enjoyment is immense in zone

  in control - command of body and emotion
• Cue utilisation

  • a theory that predicts that, as an athlete's arousal increases, his or her attention focus narrows (focuses of task at hand)
  • the narrowing process tends to cut out irrelevant environmental cues first e.g crowd noise
  • then, if arousal is too high, the relevant ones will also be blocked out e.g a team mate in space. Above optimal arousal, overwhelmed so not taking information in properly
  • if arousal is too low all cues will be attended too and performer will not be fully focused and will not perform at their best
• Cue utilisation links to inverted U-theory:

  if arousal is too low then the performer will attend to all cues, This will mean they may miss relevant cues due to distractions

  as arousal increases to optimal, irrelevant cues are blocked out and relevant cues are concentrated on

  if arousal increases past optimal then all cues will be ignored
• relevant cues e.g - player in space, where the ball is, weather, calls from referee

  irrelevant cues e.g - crowd noise, cars, stadium announcements, taunting from opponents