Stress, a universal feeling of tension, anger, or worry, is an ever-present aspect of the American lifestyle today. It can manifest itself in many ways, but most commonly arises from your body’s response to a challenging demand. The Center for Disease Control asserts that stress can be seen physically through symptoms such as headaches, body pain, muscle tension, dizziness, high blood pressure, loss of sleep and chest pain. Stress can also be seen mentally through difficulty concentrating, rapid thoughts, feelings of being overwhelmed, lack of motivation and negative thinking.
Specifically for athletes, stress refers to physical, emotional and psychological responses that athletes experience when faced with the demands of their sport. The majority of feelings of stress in sports arise from the pressure of high-performance, intense training without proper recovery, injury and the mental toll of balancing sports with other aspects of life.
Mental and emotional toll of stress
Stress takes a large toll on athletes mentally and emotionally. It can impair decision making, as well as contribute to feelings of anxiety, worry and self-doubt. In turn, severely affecting performance.
Stress can impair decision making heavily. Decision making is integral to playing sports. Every sport has an involved aspect of the ability to make a decision. Stress directly impacts decision making, impacts sports performance. Stress reduces cognitive functioning and processing speed. This causes the athletes’ focus to narrow, causing them to become fixated on things they should just move past, such as a specific mistake, play, or opponent. This creates a negative tunnel vision for athletes and reduces their ability to make well-informed decisions related to their sport.
Stress also has a heavy impact on confidence and self doubt. Athletes rely on their confidence as an integral aspect of performance. It is necessary that coaches and staff make sure their athletes have what it takes to stay and finish their seasons strong. That confidence is something that affects every aspect of an athlete’s sport. Stress chips this confidence away. It can cause athletes to doubt their abilities and not play to their true potential.
Junior women’s basketball guard, Grace Kieffer, ’26, understands how confidence can shape athletes.
“Confidence plays a pivotal role in sports performance and is important to have as an athlete. When I am more confident, I make decisions faster and it comes more naturally. During times where I lacked confidence, I hesitated and second-guessed,” said Kieffer.
Additionally, anxiety is a common feeling that arises from stress. It can have profound impacts on athlete performance. According to a 2019 review from Healthline, thirty to sixty percent of athletes experience sports anxiety. Anxiety can impair judgement, causing athlete’s to second guess their decisions and perform inadequately. It can cause athletes to become overly cautious and play to avoid mistakes instead of just giving it their all.
The link between stress and injury risk
A 2017 article titled, “Sport-related anxiety: current insights” in the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine, states that, “thus far, research has highlighted that an individual’s poor stress response to a stressful practice or competitive situation can influence their increased risk of sport injury”. This is a direct physical manifestation of stress. Injury is something that no athlete wants to experience. It is seen as a setback and acts as a barrier keeping the athlete from their sport. There are mental and physiological aspects that link stress to an increased injury risk. Mentally, athletes may become distracted and have a reduced awareness due to stress. This lack of awareness can result in errors in technique or movement that can lead to injury.
An article from London Bridge Orthopaedics outlines the physical effect stress can have on injury. Physically, stress triggers a “fight or flight” response. This response releases hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones increase muscle tension, heart rate and prepare the body for activity. While this is necessary for physical movement, this excessive tension can disrupt athlete moving mechanics such as flexibility and coordination. Lack of flexibility and coordination then, in turn, can lead to increased risk of injury.
The importance of recovery
In response to these effects of stress, recovery becomes of utmost importance. After intense practices, games, or training sessions, it is integral that athletes are given time and resources to be able to recover. Recovery has an important link to injury as well. Improper recovery is the leading factor of increased injury risk. During recovery, athletes are giving their muscles time to repair and their energy stores time to replenish. Recovery is also necessary in avoiding burnout of one’s sport, improving sleep quality and improving stress related to sport. Without recovery, athletes would not be able to successfully perform in their sports.
Senior men’s baseball infielder, John Michael Scumaci, ’25, comments on the importance of recovery as a student-athlete.
“Recovery affect my sports performance because if I do not recover properly then I will not be able to function in the best way possible for any game. Recovery must be implemented into any student athletes plan or else it would be very hard to stay healthy” Said Scumaci.
Suggestions for managing stress
With stress being an ever present aspect of athletics, techniques such as mindfulness, breathing techniques and meditation are key for managing sport related stress. Mindfulness consists of a developed awareness of your mind and body in relation to your sport. For example, a mindfulness exercise that is common for athletes is visualization. Visualizing yourself in a game, practice, or training can have significantly positive effects on performance in real life. Additionally, there are many guided visualization exercises available on platforms such as YouTube that are free and highly beneficial. These activities take no more than five minutes and provide athletes with newfound confidence when going in games, practices, or training sessions.
Another important tactic is breathing exercises. Breathing exercises induce the bodies relaxation response and combat the intense feelings of worry associated with stress. This deep breathing turns on the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps lower heart rate, cortisol levels, and blood pressure. Common breathing methods include the “Box” method and the “4-7-8” method. Both of these methods are quick and can be done at any time which makes them highly valuable. The “Box” method consists of breathing in for four seconds, holding for four seconds, and exhaling for 4 seconds. The “4-7-8” method includes inhaling for four seconds, holding your breath for seven seconds, and exhaling for eight seconds. Lebron James and Simone Biles, both elite professional athletes, have even been vocal on social media about their use of these methods.
Finding the balance
With all of this considered, stress is an ever present aspect of an athlete’s life. The most important aspect to managing stress as an athlete is to find the balance. Finding other activities that you enjoy and that can act as outlets to relieve stress is another viable way to manage stress as an athlete. Understanding that you are not alone in the athletic community and being able to lean on teammates, coaches and friends for support can aid in the overall experience of an athlete. All in all, stress is something all athletes experience, but it is not something all athletes need to struggle with.
