There are very few things that seem to rouse emotions (in athletes and fans alike) more than sports. I love to watch when the pressure is on. That juicy, heavy, stench of mental pressure is weighing down on an athlete so strongly that you can feel the tension in the air like a sticky humidity that envelops the athlete, and the crowd. It’s not war, so they’ll be no death, not a physical death anyway. But any athlete caught choking under that pressure would surely rather die than miss the clutch basket, game winning home-run, or, in this case… miss the opportunity to win a gold medal on his last run on the half pipe.
I’m watching Shaun White at the Olympics in Pyeong Chang.
He’s scored a 94 point something on his first run, putting him in first place early in the competition. Now some kid (have no idea what his name is – just that he’s not Shaun White) beat his score by a couple points. All competitors have three runs, and the best score is the one that stands. It’s late in this competition. I’m sure that Shaun, being the best snowboarder in the world, has to have a seasoned mental game, but when another rider threw up a higher score it still must have rattled him.
I’d like to say I’m above wanting to know what athletes do under pressure, but in truth, it’s all I want to know – it’s what I study. What pressure looks like. Tastes like. Where anxiety hits in the body… I want to know what the best do with it. Do they use it as fuel? Chew on it? Hold it until it’s the moment is over, then let it go like a fire hose that’s been kinked too long blasting out water? And, most importantly, what’s the antidote. Is there an antidote? Not just in athletes but in everyone.
Anxiety can freeze the mind (and with that, impede performance). It produces a great deal of cortisol, a steroid that simulates the body into our natural ‘fight or flight’ mechanism. Reasoning and thought become much more difficult for your brain to access, because that same grey matter is sending out an S.O.S. to all the parts of your body over your central nervous system ‘intercom’: WE HAVE A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION HERE!!!
Your job at this point as an athlete (as a person) is to decrease this stress, but to keep focus. Think guitar strings. Too tight, they snap; too loose, they barely make a whisper of music. Strung just tight enough, they perform in perfect harmony
So, how do you keep your head, stay focused, and not let anxiety pull your emotions so tight that you snap (lose concentration, lash out, or give up…)?
- Govern your passion – There’s no such thing as an un-useful emotion, only an ungoverned one. There’s a big difference between a fire in your wood stove, and a wild fire that has consumed a forest. Emotions like anxiousness, anger, and fear, have an incredible ability to strengthen focus, and heighten awareness especially when it is governed with…
- A strong detached effort – Our fight or flight mechanism is a response from ‘cave man’ days when having that kind of response helped keep us alive. Most of the situations we find ourselves in these days are more a sort of ‘death blow’ to our ego, pride, or sense of identity rather than truly life threatening. Take a few deep breaths. Remind yourself of what you’re doing, and although important, it’s not life threatening. Remember, you may not have control over your initial emotional response, or the environment which triggered it, but you do have control over how you respond. This can help too…
- Get out of your own way – Trust your training. Excessive thinking about what you want to do can actually trip your body up from doing it. The less you are in your head, the more your body will do what you’ve spent a great deal of time training it to do. If you are toeing the line at the Olympics, at a local race, or even stepping in to your boss’s office to present your project proposal. You trained your body and your mind adequately if not better to do the job you’re asking of it. Ask only once with your head, then get out of the way.
These are just three tools of the many that I have seen be used by athletes over the years. We see this on the grand stage of sports, but we all have tools that we use on a daily basis that help keep anxiety from hampering our efforts. What tools do you use on a regular basis to help you keep your head, stay focused, and use the anxious energy productively?
