3 Sport Psychology Tools to Handle Pressure
Below are 3 tools popular in sport psychology that every athlete should have a foundation in that helps them handle pressure.
Imagery
Handling pressure hinges on increasing your sense of preparation. Naturally, with high pressure, your sense of self-doubt increases. The other end of this spectrum is confidence. By lowering self-doubt through an increased sense of preparation, confidence increases.
One way to do this is through imagery, sometimes referred to as visualization or mental training. As with all mental skills, this one gets easier with practice. The idea is for the athlete to do a few different things while imagining their upcoming pressure-filled game:
Imagine yourself executing the fundamentals with precision. Doing the fundamentals right increases your sense of preparation and are a big part of your game. The highlights are fun, but happen far less often than performing the (albeit, less exciting) more important fundamentals.
Experience all of the sensations in this performance ahead of time, namely the sights, sounds, and what you’ll feel (both internally and externally). Your brain is constantly processing sensory information. It tends to get overwhelmed when stepping out for a big performance through sensory overload. This causes a higher sense of pressure and self-doubt. Get ahead of this by integrating what you’ll hear, see, and feel ahead of time by imagining them.
Plan for adversity. No high-pressure performance goes perfectly. There will be some bumps in the road, and some of these may make or break the result. Imagine adversity, like making an error, and picture the most effective response. Some people have a difficult time not lingering on the mistakes or imagining a poor response to adversity, in which case go back to the first two steps above.
Breathing
Pressure is a direct link to your nervous system kicking into overdrive, where you experience performance anxiety and all of the symptoms that come with it, like shaky hands, a rapid heart beat or respiration rate, overthinking, increased muscle tension, and butterflies. Intentional breathwork has a direct link to the nervous system’s activity, allowing you to gain some control over these uncomfortable symptoms. There are two steps to keep in mind when focusing on your breath to calm your nervous system:
Focus on a slower, controlled exhale. This is where the nervous system turns on the parasympathetic branch, which helps calm down activity in the body.
Engage the diaphragm. Breathe low into your belly to get more out of your breath.
Doing low and slow breathing will do wonders in just a couple of minutes when you experience a wave of anxiety. This can also be done in a quick 1 or 2 breath cycle to refocus yourself.
Self-talk
As pressure increases anxiety and self-doubt, your self-talk is bound to take an unproductive turn. Your inner critic gets loud, ruminating on reasons why you will fail, what the consequences will be, and so on. Here are some components of quality self-talk to work in to your inner dialogue:
Keep it objective. The more objective (data-driven, realistic) it is, the less subjective (emotional, irrational) it will be. The more pressure you experience, the more emotional and irrational self-talk tends to be, which damages performance in a number of ways.
Specify what to focus on. The mind does not do a great job of focusing when given a vague target. Make it specific so your mind has a reliable anchor. Without a reliable anchor, it is likely to drift off into negative, irrational thinking.
“Do language.” In addition to being specific, make the language positive. “Don’t screw up” is don’t language. Just like the thought of “don’t think about a pink elephant” conjures an image of a pink elephant, “don’t screw up” forces your mind to think about what it will look and feel like to make an error. Instead, use positive language like “move your feet.”
Challenge based over threat based thoughts. With pressure comes the threat of squandering an opportunity or disappointment. Threats to your future are imminent. Rephrase the threats you tell yourself to opportunities to make a difference or take a big step in your career. The mind does better when trying to make the most of an opportunity (growth mindset) as opposed to avoiding failure (fixed mindset).
Lock in to the present moment. Oftentimes, problematic self-talk is found in the past (dwelling on a mistake) and the future (anxiety). Focusing on the senses or what you can do in the moment does wonders in anchoring your mind to the present, where it makes a difference.
Self-talk needs to be reeled in constantly as the brain is naturally distractible, even more so when the pressure is on. Exercise discipline once you notice your self-talk degrading in quality, and come back to one of these components to flip the script.
