Stress in Athlete

Chan Stress in Athletes Marriam-Webster defines an athlete as "a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina" which can represent a diverse group of people (Merriam-Webster, N.d.). This group might include elite athletes, average people, and even children. Moreover, their socioeconomic status and demographics distribution is widely ranged. Although this group is diverse in most of their characteristics, they still face the same stress factors.

Those stressors can influence athletes both mentally and physically in their daily life and during sporting events and practice. Because of these issues, it is important to analyze this group from a stressor perspective. There were four categories of stress or strain that athletes usually face. The first one is competitive concerns. This was one of the most stressful factors that athletes cannot avoid as competition is part of what sports are about. Athletes compete with each other, either within the team or outside the team.

This can be a source of stress because they have the pressure to win. The second category of stress is the pressure to perform. When an athlete is playing the game, he or she has to worry about his or her perform capabilities. If they do not perform well, there is a chance for them to experience negative feedback. Not only this, athletes have to be careful to protect their health as it will influence their performance and career. The third category is lifestyle demands.

In majority of the research reports, athletes reported that time management was a great issue to them. They felt that they are having difficulties balancing their daily life and sport life. Some of the physical health problems, like lack of sleep, and fatigue, were being developed due to poor time management skills. The fourth category was the negative aspects of personal relationships. In the category, athletes encounter stressors from the lack of satisfaction with his or her relationship with the coach or team mates (Wilson & Pritchard, 2005).

There were some coping strategies that athlete could use to cope with the stressors mention above. In general, stress coping strategies were sort into two categories: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping strategy "involves efforts to alter or manage the problem that is causing the stress for the individual concerned" (Weinberg & Gould, 2014, p. 284). Some of the skills for this coping strategy would be communication, planning, information seeking, and injury rehabilitation.

For emotion-focused coping strategy, it regulated "the emotional responses to the problem that causes stress for the individual (Weinberg & Gould, 2014, p. 284). In this coping style, it included skills like thought control, positive social support, positive self-talk, and meditation. Those two coping strategies could be use differently depends on a person's need and the sport he or she was playing. Therefore it can be difficult to judge which one is more beneficial. Research had shown that gender and type of sport played (team vs.

individual) had impact on coping strategy and its effectiveness on stress (Nicholls, Polman, Levy, Taylor, & Cobley, 2007). In one study, the researchers found that team sport player like to use more emotion-focused coping style when they encounter a stressor. To this group of player, positive self-talk and self-blame seems more effective to them. On the other hand, individual player like to use problem-focused coping skills, like problem solving and information gathering, when they worked with their stress.

Unlike the finding for team and individual player, the finding for gender was not clear. Through the examination of the past researches, there were all sort of result with gender difference for athlete in coping. While some researchers indicated that males used problem-focused coping more and females used emotion-focused coping more, others suggested the opposite.

Although there was not a clear result on which gender use which coping styles more, it supported the fact that there was a gender difference when it came to coping style (Nicholls, Polman, Levy, Taylor, & Cobley, 2007). Anxiety was the typical stress-related symptoms for athletes. It could occur when athlete felt stressful in either competitive situation or daily life. Commonly, athletes would experience muscle soreness or aches when they were anxious since their muscle was tight because of the anxiety.

Moreover, athlete reported that they had some physical problem, such as cold and clammy hands or profuse sweating, when they were stressing out. Anxiety was a big issue to athletes not only because it leads to many physical problems, but also it also leads to detrimental coping strategies, such as negative self-talk. Furthermore, it could lead to bad reinforcement and lower the athlete's self-esteem as athletes have been shown to have better performances when they were not anxious.

One unique thing to know about anxiety was that it could be a plus to an athlete if it was used correctly. According to Weinberg & Gould (2007), an athlete could increase his effort in performance by covering his deficits when certain level of anxiety interfered with the working memory resources in a short period of time. However, if the anxiety level went beyond the level that an athlete could handle, then it would decrease the performance by losing attention.

Therefore, it was important for athlete to understand and control his anxiety, as it could be a plus to athlete's performance. There were five guidelines that coach and sport psychologist could use to help their athlete understand about their anxiety, stress, and arousal so their performance can be increased. The first one was to identify what are the best arousal-related emotions for the athlete to have during a good performance.

For instance, if it was identified that an athlete performed well when he was happy, then the coach could teach him imagery technique that could help him duplicate these emotions before competing. Second, athlete needed to recognize which situational and personal factors would influence his performance as well as his stress and anxiety. Third, the athlete had to know what kind of symptoms and arousals he had when he was feeling anxiety and stress. This way,.