BUILDING RESILIENCE

THE PRESSURES OF AN ATHLETE: BUILDING RESILIENCE

It’s easy to criticise athletes when they crumble under pressure, yet no one really knows what effect that has on their mental health both short term and long term and how much work it takes to surpass it.

A penalty kick. A free throw. Putting for a birdie on the 18th. These are probably some of the most intense moments in sport and we often witness them from the comfort of our living rooms, possibly giving advice having never played the sport professionally and then muttering ‘I could have scored that’ if the player in question does end up missing.

I’m sure we’re all guilty of being an armchair coach at least one time in our lives but how does a professional athlete shake off that miss and not let it affect them for the next game? How do they block out the negativity both in their heads and online? Are they able to reframe the negative situation into a positive one? This is all entirely possible and it’s a skill everyone can learn.

As a kid, do you remember being absolutely fearless? Nothing could ever stand in our way, and we’d be up for anything but somewhere down the line, we let the world in a little bit at a time and start to second guess ourselves. Every decision we make needs to be thought through and while this process can be beneficial, we can often let those negative voices dictate and override a simple decision. For some of us, this could be a one-off experience, a slight blip that doesn’t fluster us and we’re able to carry on as normal. But what if for some of us, this becomes a common occurrence and anxiety starts to creep in and starts to affect daily life?

Resilience isn’t just a character trait that you’re born with, it’s something that we can all learn and it’s easily one of the best life skills to acquire. Former England player and manager Terry Venables believed taking a penalty kick in football is one of the most difficult parts of a player’s job; ‘“Penalties put too much strain on one player. It could ruin his career if he’s not a strong character.” In all sports at a top level, there is now recognition that all players need to be a strong character, to have the resilience to be an athlete at the highest level. Some top tier teams and clubs across various sports around the world are now employing psychologists or mental health experts to create better environments to help encourage better mental health and in turn, better resilience across all players. Some top athletes are even hiring experts on a more one to one level and factoring it into their wider development plan. While this is an encouraging step for all of those in sports, not all sports and clubs within those sports are created equally. The hiring of psychologists doesn’t come cheap as you’d expect so it can create

an unfair advantage across the playing field, especially at youth level. The pressure to perform at a top level from such a young age is a battle the young athlete and the association/club constantly come up against and it can be hard to find a balance between pushing too hard and encouraging good mental wellbeing. Clubs and sports organisations must start to recognise that prevention, early detection, and selfmanagement must be at the core of encouraging good mental wellbeing rather than letting a problem go too far which in turn makes it harder to fix. One of the best ways to prevent, detect and selfmanage your own mental health is via CBT or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Marnie Merrilees, a counsellor at Thrive: Mental Wellbeing and Sport and Exercise Psychologist says.

Most players, coaches and even sports psychologists would agree that to play your best football, you must be in the ‘right frame of mind and physically, feel good’. Unfortunately getting into this optimal performance state is not easy and takes a great deal of practice.

This optimal performance state will differ from individual to individual, which means coaches, cannot treat each player the same and still expect them all to perform brilliantly. On the other hand, in that last hour before kick-off we cannot afford for eleven different players to be going off to do eleven different things to get themselves ‘right for the game’, or our group cohesion or ‘teamness’, will suffer. Hence, we start to recognise that the complexities, of getting all the players and the team into the ‘zone’, are many and varied.’

In its simplest form, the relationship between arousal and performance can be best described as an inverted ‘U’ curve. It suggests that performance will increase as arousal increases up to some optimal level, however, further increases in arousal will produce a decrease in performance.

Marnie explains ‘One of the first steps to take in controlling arousal levels, is to become more aware of these thoughts, feelings and behaviours during practice and competition. This involves self-monitoring (or getting your players to self-monitor) your feelings and recognising how these are associated with your performance outcomes. Remember that the most important observation that you can make (or help your players to make) is to understand the relationship between how you feel on the inside and how you perform on the outside. Your ultimate objective is to gain a high degree of control over your feelings.

A second step that we can take as coaches is to become aware of how we can manipulate the preperformance environment –‘environmental engineering.’ The two variables that may influence many players are ‘uncertainty’ and ‘importance’. The more uncertain we are or the greater the importance we place upon the match the higher our anxiety levels are likely to become. If coaches feel their players are generally a little complacent (or under aroused) they should increase uncertainty and importance. If the players are very anxious (or overaroused) they should reduce uncertainty and importance.’

The most effective strategy usually involves teaching each individual player arousal control skills that they can integrate into the team preparation situation. ◆

“Most players, coaches and even sports psychologists would agree that to play your best football, you must be in the ‘right frame of mind and physically, feel good’. Unfortunately getting into this optimal performance state is not easy and takes a great deal of practice.”

Thrive: Mental Wellbeing the only NHS regulated wellbeing app for employees is designed to empower users to take control of their mental health by early detection, self-management, and education. For more information, visit: www.thrive.uk.com