Psychological interventions

• How does listening to music help with arousal levels?

  upbeat, energetic music can produce energy before a competition. Or soothing music can help an athlete to feel more relaxed before a competition
• What is the aim of listening to music?

  The aim is create a personalised 'bubble' of focus and concentration where the athlete removes unwanted stimuli
• A pep-talk can take different forms e.g coach talking in upbeat way about your abilities. It can also be given by a teammate, parent or friend. Using emotive or confirmatory phrases.
• What is the aim of breathing control?

  The aim of breathing control is to focus attention, so if you are focusing on your breathing it will shift your attention away from the cause of stress and anxiety.
• Breathing control - a method used to reduce muscle tension and to lower anxiety levels. When tense you will have short, shallow breathing. To become relaxed you can breath deeply and slowly to produce mental and physical relaxation.
• Mind-to-muscle: as your mind becomes more and more relaxed these feelings of relaxation spread to your body and your whole body becomes relaxed. This helps to replace tension in the mind and lower arousal levels.
• How do you do mind-to-muscle?


  You need to think of a specific time or situation when you felt really relaxed and recreate this situation in your mind.
• What is the aim of PMR?

  That you understand what tension and relaxation feel like so that when you become tense during sporting competition you can quickly relax your muscles. Good for high somatic anxiety but cognitive anxiety is better suited to mental relaxation techniques and imagery.
• Progressive Muscular Relaxation (PMR)
• Progressive Muscular Relaxation:
• Progressive Muscular Relaxation: developed by Jacobsen (1938). Involves the tensing and relaxing of muscles, using a recorded script that takes you through the muscles of the body in sequence. Helps you to learn relaxation effect.
• What are the three techniques for high arousal?

  PMR
• High arousal techniques: PMR, Mind to Muscle and pep-talks.
• What psychological factors can self-talk be used for?


  controlling arousal, managing stress, reducing anxiety, controlling aggression and developing self-confidence.
• Self-talk: short repeatable conversations that we have with ourselves. Mostly internal conversations but sometimes we do talk to ourselves out loud.
• Types of self-talk: can be positive and negative and will both have different effects on you. Negative = anxious = self-doubt. Positive = affirmations = reassure ourselves that we have skill and ability.
• What psychological factors link to imagery?


  Motivation, controlling arousal, managing stress, reducing anxiety, controlling aggression and developing self-confidence.
• What are the 3 types of imagery?

  • Visual - involves seeing yourself performing skills confidently or overcoming problems effectively. Can be internal or external.
• What are the three types of imagery?

  • Auditory - hearing the sounds that you heard when you were performing. Useful to use more than one sense. Kinaesthetics- describes the feelings that you have when you are performing a skill.
• Imagery - a skill that involves creating or recreating experiences in your mind (Weinberg and Gould, 2015). Also referred to as mental rehearsal and visualisation.
• What psychological factors can be linked to goal setting?


  Motivation, reducing anxiety, controlling aggression, developing confidence and managing stress.
• SMART Goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound
• Types of goals: Performance - focus on achieving a certain standard of performance, Mastery - set with the aim of mastering specific skills or techniques, Outcome - focus on the outcome of a competition or event, such as winning a race, Process - focus on the processes or actions that an individual must produce to perform well and Competitive - set for achieving specific things in competition.
• Goal setting - what an individual is aiming to achieve; it is the outcome they want their actions to produce.
• What psychological factor is the focus of performance profiling?

  Motivation
• What are the outcomes of performance profiling?

  • Provides motivation to improve Identifies individuals strengths and weaknesses and develops the athletes self-awareness
• Performance profiling: each section is labelled with a performance attribute, athlete or coach will score each attribute, resulting image provides visual feedback, highlights strengths and limitations.
• What is the aim of performance profiling?

  To allow the coach and athlete to identify the particular psychological characteristics necessary to be successful in their sport.