Stress and Anxiety in Football: What do you need to know and how can you manage it?
Competitive sport is a high demand environment, with the potential of creating stress for those that chose to partake. There is a massive demand placed on athletes across the sporting world, regardless of level or sport, and stress and anxiety can play a crucial role in determining an athlete’s performance. Football is a high paced game with many factors that can affect not only the game but the team and individuals that chose to play, no matter what position or experience level you are. So how do you stop stress from becoming a diminishing factor to your performance as a footballer?
STRESS AND ANXIETY
Stress is not only found in sports performance, but across many aspects of life; however in sport, stress refers to the relationship between an individual and the environmental demands that are associated with the individual’s sporting performance [22]. The individual and the environmental demands should be balanced in order for the athlete to perform at their optimum level, otherwise there could be negative effects on the athlete’s performance.
Anxiety is a response that an athlete can have to these stressors and it has been found that many athletes have reported feeling anxiety as a result of sport related stress [4][26]. Anxiety is “an unpleasant psychological state in reaction to perceived stress concerning the performance of a task under pressure” [3] and is common among athletes at all levels. Anxiety is characterised by feelings of worry, apprehension and nervousness and responses such sweating, worry and doubt have reportedly been felt by athletes in response to sport related stressors [4]. There are many factors that can cause or contribute to an athlete’s anxiety, and this can, in turn, affect the athlete’s performance. What types of anxiety are there and how can this affect your performance?
TYPES OF ANXIETY
Anxiety can be characterised by the following three components; somatic (sweating, increased heart rate), behavioural (fidgeting, biting of the lip), and cognitive (feeling of apprehension, negative thoughts).
One type of anxiety can be referred to as “trait anxiety”, this type usually manifests itself as a part of an individual’s personality and is a constant state of being for the individual regardless of the situation. Individual’s with trait anxiety will constantly feel worry as a behavioural tendency. Athlete’s with trait anxiety are more likely to perceive situations as threatening, and their responses may be more extreme than those that do not experience trait anxiety and their reactions could be classed as disproportionate [26]. For example, if two players were asked to take penalties under the exact same circumstances; one may not find this task overly-threatening, as they are more laid-back. This means he is experiencing low-trait anxiety and does not have more anxiety than would be expected in this situation. However, the other player may experience high trait anxiety, and so would find the opportunity to score a penalty (or more than likely, an opportunity to miss a penalty in their eyes) as incredibly threatening, meaning this player is experiencing more anxiety than expected in this situation, which could affect their performance more than the player experiencing low level trait anxiety.
The second type of anxiety is “state anxiety” and is a situation specific type of anxiety, therefore it changes, and is only activated in certain situations. State anxiety is also characterised by individual’s being aware of when they are experiencing it and is heavily linked to an individual’s arousal levels. For example, a player’s level of state anxiety can change from moment to moment in a game of football, and a player may experience a slightly higher level of state anxiety (noticing heart rate increasing, feeling apprehensive) when defending a corner than when running with the ball in the middle of the field, and may experience an extremely high level of state anxiety (feeling nervous, heart racing) when experiencing a clear run onto goal.
Arousal levels are an athlete’s state of alertness and excitement surrounding a particular situation, [26]. aroused individuals will experience increases in heart rate, respiration and sweating. Arousal is not positive or negative, but neutral. You can be aroused just after having scored a goal but be equally as aroused after missing a penalty. Arousal is on a continuum from not arousal at all to completely aroused.
Is it important to note that trait anxiety is a behavioural state that makes the athlete perceive situations as threatening that may not be, and to then respond with disproportionate state anxiety. Athlete’s with high trait anxiety usually have more state anxiety in competitive situations compared to those with lower trait anxiety [26][17].
WHAT TYPES OF STRESSOR COULD YOU EXPERIENCE?
Stressors are factors that can cause stress to an individual. These stressors are environmental demands that could be encountered by an individual such as yourself and could even be a daily challenge.
There are many factors that can cause stress and lead to anxiety in a sporting environment. Researchers have investigated several types of sporting stressors and each type has the ability to have an effect on footballer’s performances, for example:
Competitive Stressors
Competitive stressors are those that you may associate primarily with your competitive sporting environment. The most common competitive stressors experienced by athlete’s are injury, preparation and performance expectations.
For footballers, competitive stressors could include:
· The risk of injury, not just from the playing of the game, but from the opponent; this could lead to missing competitions, losing fitness and competing while injured [6].
· Not having the time/energy to prepare “enough” for competitions, not only based on the individual’s own beliefs but on the beliefs of the captain/coach/manager [27].
· Pressure to perform well by constantly being able to beat others and perform with minimal mistakes; performing under demand is a constant in a football season. This can include wanting to beat opponents as well as wanting to beat those on your team to a spot in the starting eleven. [5]
· Performance expectations; an individual will always expect a certain level of performance from themselves, but this is not the only stress that footballers have to deal with, as they must cope with the expectations of the team, the coach, the captain, the fans and the manager too [19].
Organisational Stressors
These are stressors that are associated with the organisation in which you play. This includes the team, coaches and managers, inter-personal issues, and the behaviour of the officials and spectators [2].
Organisational stressors for footballers could include:
· Team cohesion and communications (how well the team gets along and communicates with each other)
· Teammates’ personalities and attitudes and how they differ from your own
· The knowledge of roles within the team; how the captain and vice-captain behave, how the goalkeeper behaves, how do you all interact with each other and does this work for you
· The facilities and equipment used by your team, are they of a good standard? Are they clean and well-kept or are they in disrepair?
· Coaches/managers behaviours and expectations; how do they treat the team? Are you happy with the way they coach and interact with you during games and training?
· Referee and spectator behaviours; Is the referee fair? Are the spectators supportive?
Personal Stressors
These stressors are connected to your non-sporting life and events. Stressors from this category include issues such as work-life balance and family problems [12].
Personal stressors can include:
· Death of a family member or significant other
· Academic/work commitments; Do you have a good balance between academia/work and your sporting life?
· Personal relationships; are they healthy for you? Do they affect your sport? Do you have a good balance with your sporting life?
It is important to note that each of these different types of stressor could vary in; intensity (how demanding the stressor is for the individual), frequency (how often the stressor occurs for the individual), and duration (how long the individual experiences the stressor) [2].
HOW CAN THESE STRESSORS AFFECT PERFORMANCE?
There are many theories surrounding the topic of stress and anxiety affecting athlete’s performance as it is a topic that has been extensively researched. Many theories have focused on the negative effects that stress and anxiety can have on performance, however some researchers have found that athletes can interpret anxiety positively [7][15].
Research has suggested that anxiety felt an hour prior to and during performances can be facilitative to performance if the individual experiencing the anxiety interprets the cause of anxiety as “under control”. For example, if a player is feeling concerned about the match they are about to play and are feeling nervous or experiencing doubt, but they associate this feeling with prior performances that have gone well then this can cause the player to feel increased focus and motivation towards the match. It is important to note that this theory focuses on perceived control, and anxiety can only lead to increased performance if the individual believes the cause of the anxiety (the stressor) to be under control. This perceived control is what affects how the symptoms of anxiety are directed.
However, if individual’s do not feel that the cause of anxiety is under control then they may find this to be debilitative to performance. For example, if the player feels under-prepared for a match, this could lead to the player overthinking, which inhibits performance as it does not let the body perform autonomously [1][15].
If a player does not perceive their anxiety to be under control, there are many theories about how this can affect a player’s performance.
Inverted-U Hypothesis
This theory [20] states that at low arousal levels performance will be poor, and performance will increase with arousal up to a certain point. This point is referred to as the optimal arousal level, and if arousal levels continue to increase after this point the player will see a decline in performance. According to this theory, the optimum arousal point is the point at which a player performs at their best, encouraging footballers to perform with moderate amounts of arousal/anxiety. This theory is represented by an inverted-U, shown below.
However, researchers have questioned how well this shows the arousal-performance relationship, and ask if optimum arousal always occurs at the peak of the Inverted-U [9].
Individualised Zones of Optimum Functioning (IZOF)
As an answer to this question, the Individualised Zones of Optimum Functioning (IZOF) theory was presented [13][14]. This theory differs from the Inverted-U theory in a number of ways; first of all, a performer’s optimum level of state anxiety does not occur only at one specific point, and instead the optimum level of state anxiety is shown as a zone (also known as a bandwidth) on a state anxiety continuum. The second change is that the optimum zone of state anxiety does not always occur a the midpoint of this continuum, and is different for every individual. Some performer’s optimum zone may occur at the lower end, some at the mid-point, and some at the higher [10].
This brings us back to perceived control [15], which was mentioned earlier in this chapter, as each individual has their own amount of state anxiety and stress that they feel they are under control of, some individual’s may not be able to deal with high levels of stress, and so would find themselves on the lower end of the continuum, however others may find that they feel they are under control of many stressors, and find themselves on the upper end.
However, in any individual’s case, this theory still suggests that too much stress and state anxiety for a player is detrimental to their performance, with poor performance occurring outside of their optimal zones, meaning a player that is experiencing too much stress in their sport may still perform poorly.
STRESS MANAGEMENT AND COPING STRATEGIES
Despite all of this, there are steps that performer’s can take in order to deal with the stress and anxiety that they experience in their own sporting contexts. Stress interventions have been found to be effective, with 96% of studies being able to alter performers’ experiences positively [24].
It is important to deal with stress in your sport, as there could be consequences to ignoring stress that are reflected in your performance (choking, conscious control/overthinking) and in your well-being (burnout, depression) [9]. There are many interventions to choose from in order to cope and reduce stress in a sporting environment; this following chapter will outline some of the processes you can undergo to reduce stress in your sport.
In order to understand which interventions you will need, you will first have to go through a method of appraisal. You will firstly need to understand the relevance of the stressors you are experiencing to your goals, ask yourself how the stressors affect you and how much do you care about this. Secondly, you will need to ask yourself what you can do about it, and if these methods will be enough. Once you understand these two points you will be able to identify which interventions you will need to undertake.
Primary Interventions
Primary interventions have a preventative focus by attempting to eliminate or reduce the frequency, intensity or duration of the stressors. This is a problem focused strategy, and studies suggest that this is an effective tool, however this method will take a long time and a lot of effort to implement, and some stressors may be out of your control within the realms of this intervention, for example there will always be competition for the starting 11, and neither you or your coach can control your opposition [2].
Primary interventions include:
· Having discussions with your coach over things within the organisation that you are unhappy with; for example, the equipment, or the role clarification within your team
· Discuss the structure of training with your coach; can they extend the training or host more sessions? Can they dedicate more time to a particular skill?
· Creating and setting long term goals to help you improve on a skill or position. You could also discuss this with your coach.
Secondary Interventions
Secondary interventions are those which are used if stressors cannot be completely removed from a sporting environment, and so focuses on the athlete’s reactions to the stressors. These interventions are emotion focused coping strategies and help to manage the negative emotions that can be caused by the stressor. A study found that these techniques helped to block out the negative emotions and helped them to feel more in control of their performance (83%) [15].
Positive Thought Control [18] is a stress management technique in which you not only are able to stop or block negative thoughts but may also be able to turn these negative thoughts into positive, therefore increasing your perceived control. In order to carry out this technique, you should follow these steps:
· Identify a trigger word or picture, for example “stop”, “no” or a red X
· This method of self-talk/imagery is used to block the negative thoughts/feelings once they occur
· Replace this negative thought with a positive one to create a more controlled narrative for yourself, such as “I thought this last game, and I still played well” or “I have had feelings like this before but managed to play on”
It may also be useful to keep a diary of the thoughts you block and the thoughts you replace them with in order to keep track of which thoughts are reoccurring and which replacement thoughts work best for you [16].
Another technique that may work for you is Applied Relaxation (AP). AP helps a performer to recognise the early signs of anxiety and learn how to cope with it in order to restore control. This stress management skill is split into 6 parts [18].
· Complete AP sessions by slowly and consciously tensing and relaxing every muscle in your body, this can be done with a guide which I have attached: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nZEdqcGVzo
· After a couple of weeks, begin to complete these sessions without the help of the guide
· After a few sessions, remove the muscle tensing instructions from the procedure
· After a few sessions, condition the word “relax” into this procedure, think about the word while you are completing the relaxation and incorporate “relax” into your breathing. By this stage you should be focussed on your breathing and not on your muscles
· After a few weeks of this, this skill should become “portable”, meaning you should be able to do this skill in any situation by focussing on the word “relax” and on your breathing.
· At this stage, you should begin to aim to use this skill while training and in matches, as much as you possibly can and whenever you feel anxiety building
· You may even eventually find yourself doing this skill subconsciously, as you begin to recognise anxiety and take steps to prevent it
It should be noted that positive thought control may be more effective if you experience cognitive anxiety, and applied relaxation may be more effective if you experience somatic anxiety [21]. It is advised that you undertake more than one of these interventions, as using a combination of these will have the greatest effects on your football performance [24].
“It is crucial that athletes have the ability to utilise and optimise several psychological qualities to withstand the pressures that they experience within their sport” [8][11]. I hope that this blog has given you a few of the tools that you need in order to help you play at your best despite the stressors you experience in football.
Mental health is a serious problem in football, as shown by the Premier League’s partnership with Mind “Heads Up” [23], so please engage in conversation if you are struggling with any of the topics covered in this blog.
References
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