Stress

... AND ITS EFFECT ON YOUR RIDING PERFORMANCE

Stress and anxiety are innate aspects of athletic competition and often inhibit performance and ultimately contribute to an unfavourable competition outcome. Many athletes report difficulty concentrating, inefficient decision-making, hazy thought, and reduced energy as a result of competition stress. However, despite the negative discourse surrounding stress in everyday life, it can often provide motivation, increase levels of focus, and is the main reason athletes will sometimes feel “in the zone”. Which brings us to ask: how does stress impact equestrian performance? The answer to this question is not as simple as it may appear and has been the subject of sport psychology inquiry for decades.

WHAT IS STRESS?

Stress was initially identified in the 1940s by Hans Selye, a Hungarian endocrinologist. Selye grappled with pinpointing a definition of stress for years, but eventually, he posited stress to be “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand placed upon it”. This incredibly vague definition essentially means that stress is the process our body goes through when dealing with circumstances that disrupt our psychophysiological homeostasis. The human body naturally seeks balance, and homeostasis is a technical term for how your body goes about seeking and establishing this balance. An example of homeostasis can be seen in our body’s perpetual attempt to regulate its temperature. When you get too hot, you will perspire, and when you get too cold, you will shiver; both of these are automatic responses from your body, as it attempts to keep your core temperature at around 37°C. When this balance is disrupted, either physically or psychologically, your body experiences stress until it reaches a point of homeostasis or balance with which it is comfortable.

THE BODY’S STRESS RESPONSE

In order to fully comprehend stress in a competition setting, it is important first to have a working grasp of how the body responds to a stressful situation. Stress is a very normal human reaction that happens to everyone. In fact, your body is designed to experience stress. When you are exposed to a stressor (such as the pressure of a showjumping competition), the body activates the sympathetic nervous system and mobilises the body’s resources for action. This is more widely known as the “fight or flight” response and can be thought of as the body’s survival mode. In response to stress, all major resources are mobilised to enable the body to fight or flee to survive. In terms of homeostasis, the stressor (performance pressure) would cause a deviation from psychological homeostasis (from calm to nervous); this deviation would cause stress and would activate the fight or flight response. Once the stressor has been dealt with through successfully fighting (completing the round) or fleeing (going home and not jumping), the body’s stress response will usually end and the parasympathetic system will return the nervous system to its normal state of arousal.

THE STRESS EXPERIENCE

While the body’s response to stress is unchanging, whether you actually feel stressed is entirely individual, and certain things that cause stress for some may cause no stress for others. Whether you interpret a situation as stressful or not is determined by two distinct evaluations or “appraisals”. Firstly, an analysis of the significance of the stressor will give you an idea of whether or not it is a threat or opportunity: this is called “primary appraisal”. For example, someone who has jumped at Derby for many years may

view a small local competition as an opportunity to try new things in a relaxed environment, resulting in a low-stress level. However, an up-and-coming rider would view the same local competition as considerably more threatening, resulting in higher stress levels. Secondly, an analysis of your ability to cope with the environmental stress as it presents itself, regardless of the significance, is called “secondary appraisal”. Dealing with a stress-inducing scenario requires certain resources, like resilience, coping mechanisms, and even skill-level. Your determination of whether or not you possess these resources will determine the amount of stress you experience. For example, the up-and-coming rider may experience heightened stress during the local competition (primary appraisal). However, if she feels she possesses the necessary coping mechanisms and skill level (resources), she will feel a reduction in stress levels. Alternatively, if she feels she does not possess the necessary resources, her already heightened stress levels are likely to increase. Understanding appraisal is a key part of understanding competition stress and performance, as the situation alone does not account for the stress seen in the competitor. Individual factors need to be taken into account in order to understand how the situation will impact the rider’s performance.

STRESS AND PERFORMANCE

Stress is often seen as the enemy of performance, with commentators and competitors often referring to stress as the cause of a loss. However, despite the general discourse surrounding stress, it is not always maladaptive Many years ago, researchers by the names of Robert Yerkes and John Dodson were the first to posit stress as a positive sensation in the realm of sports performance, and they termed this positive stress “eustress”. Their research illustrated that stress at the right levels can make the competitor feel energised, focused and help them to get into a flow state where work feels effortless and enjoyment is at its highest. This is often referred to as being “in the zone”. This beneficial stress or eustress, is posited as being the point of peak performance, where competitors are highly motivated and they feel that their skill-level

OUR EXPERT

Ryan Tehini (BA, BSocSci (Hons) Psych, MA Research Psychology (cum laude)(UP)) For Psychological Skills Training for sports’ competitions, please get in touch with me: ryantehini@gmail.com, or 073 567 7387

matches the task required of them. However, even though stress can be exceedingly positive, it is a fine line to walk as too much or even too little stress can result in the same underperformance.

Too little stress causing poor performance may sound like an oxymoron, but if an individual is under stimulated and bored, their performance decreases. This is thought to be one of the reasons that Einstein failed entrance exams or that an Olympic showjumper does not perform to the best of her ability at a local show.

Too much stress, however, is far more typical of a reason for underperformance and is termed “distress”. Have you ever experienced brain freeze when you try to remember the course? Or made a mistake in the arena that you usually never would have made? These are classic signs that you are experiencing too much stress. Too much stress as a competitor can lead to fatigue, health declines, burnout, and cognitive impairment and is ultimately detrimental to your performance. Stress is a fine line to walk as a competitor, but your performance will increase exponentially if you learn how to master it.

STRESS AND HORSES

As we noted in last month’s article, horses are incredibly in tune with reading human emotion, and with stress being one of the easiest emotions to read in humans, they can pick up on your stress from a mile away. However, there is one notable aspect of equestrian sports that makes it a particularly interesting realm for stress and performance. As prey animals, horses are hardwired for survival and subsequently possess a fight or flight mode of their own. As a rider, you will surely have noticed that horses fight or flight mode is particularly sensitive, and they will spook at the drop of a plastic bag. This makes equestrian notably complex as it is one of the few scenarios where you have to manage two stress levels instead of just one. On top of this, a horse's response to stress is usually not a delivery of optimal performance but instead a state of panic, making optimal performance highly unlikely.

MANAGING STRESS

While reducing stress is usually the focus when the subject comes up in conversation, this is not always the best approach for athletes. Stress can be a useful tool in competition, as long as it is managed and maintained at a helpful and not debilitating level.

However, the most universally applicable advice I can give to handle stress is to give yourself breaks. If you were exercising and you became tired, you would slow down, allow yourself some time to recover, and then get going again at a better pace than before. Afford yourself this same opportunity with your mind; balancing out high levels of stress with intermittent feelings of positivity can exponentially reduce your overall stress. Feeling good should not be a luxury, it is a psychological necessity, and you need to make time for it, particularly in stressful surroundings.

In the coming months, this section will take a closer look at some valuable psychological techniques that can be used to harness stress and increase your riding performance.

IMAGE: MERLYNN TRICHARDT

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