How does arousal affect sports performance

They see situations as more threatening or dangerous, and are more likely to focus on negative possibilities, past failures, mishaps and consequences of failure.

On the other hand, athletes with low-trait anxiety are more likely to focus on success. They respond more effectively to mistakes and stress, and are able to focus on the current situation.

Instead of being challenged by their mistakes, they are more likely to be motivated by them to work harder. This allows athletes with low-trait anxiety to recover better physically and emotionally after a mistake, allowing them to get back into the game faster, and focus on a future event. Physiology of Anxiety The bodily reactions to an anxiety stimulus result from the action of the sympathetic nervous system, and from the effects of the hormone epinephrine popularly known as adrenaline ; secreted by the adrenal glands.

This is known as the somatic reaction to stress. The following reactions occur: 1. The rate and depth of breathing increase 2.

There is an increase in heart rate and the amount of blood pumped out with each beat. Blood pressure increases. Less blood goes to the internal organs, and more to the muscles. The liver releases extra blood sugar to supply energy.

Production of saliva in the mouth decreases; and supply of mucus in respiratory passages decreases. The pupils of the eyes dilate, letting in more light. The galvanic skin response or GSR changes in electrical resistance of the skin increases. The GSR is related in a complex way to the functioning of the sweat glands on the skin and through this interaction, sweating may increase. These are similar to the fight or flight responses of stress we mentioned in the previous lesson.

The fact that many of these changes are quite easy to measure, provides a basis for the ordinary lie detector, or polygraph. The Cognitive reaction to stress is where the mind prepares for the threat to come. Psychology of Anxiety Anxiety can be a learned behaviour, and generally is thought of as an internal state usually produced by external stimuli; and not necessarily leading to any particular behaviour.

Different levels of anxiety result in many different forms of behaviour. Anxiety can be used as a motivational emotion when sports participants need to be aware of a threat or danger of loosing a race or game.

Anxiety levels need to be controlled in sport: not eliminated. Competitive anxiety is a state of anxiety, stress and arousal that can occur when athletes are taking part in sports. Arousal is required in order to achieve optimum performance in sport or exercise.

Physiology of Arousal An increase in physical activity can change hormone levels, blood flow, etc and create arousal. All athletes react and cope differently with both arousal and anxiety. Psychology of Arousal Arousal may be caused by either positive or negative emotions e. This is a vague and very general concept Levels of arousal change for different sports. Archery for example requires a slight arousal, but football a much higher or more intense level of arousal.

Choking Choking is the inability to perform to a former standard. The 'inverted U' theory proposes that sporting performance improves as arousal levels increase but that there is a threshold point. Any increase in arousal beyond the threshold point will worsen performance. At low arousal levels, performance quality is low.

This is described as under-arousal or boredom and might be experienced by an elite tennis player playing a lowly ranked opponent. At medium arousal levels, sporting performance peaks. However, arousal is determined by psychological processes such as emotions, which, in turn, depend on higher cognitive functions like thoughts. Arousal reflects general physical and psychological activity.

For example, coma is a pathologically low state of arousal whereas agitation is an extremely high arousal. Usually, people are somewhere in between of those two extremes. In sport setting, arousal is often linked to anxiety. Anxiety is a negative emotional state with feelings of worry, nervousness and apprehension that is associated with the arousal and activation of the nervous system.

In general, arousal has two kinds of effects on performance. First, it increases muscle tension and affects co-ordination. Too much tension is detrimental to performance. Second, arousal affects attention.