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Mental Gymnastics: How Does Stress Hurt Your Athletic Performance?

Summary & Participants

Many people turn to sports to unwind, but the pressure of competition can turn otherwise relaxing pursuits into sources of stress (and affect your game, too). Our panel of experts will discuss what you can do to make sure your sports life helps, rather than hurts, your state of mind.

Medically Reviewed On: May 07, 2008

Webcast Transcript

PAUL MONIZ: I'm Paul Moniz. Thanks for joining us today. We are discussing the role of stress in sports. Growing up you might remember that pick-up game of basketball or those endless Little League games that seemed to define summer. Looking back you probably recall how much fun it was. But think harder and you might also remember it was pretty competitive. The reality is that for most of us, especially as we grow older, even recreationally, sports is a proving ground. Sometimes what begins as a way to kick back can quickly turn into a contest. You try to show up friends, co-workers, even out do yourself.

Some amount of stress in sports is healthy, of course, because pressure can improve performance. But when the very sport you've chosen to kick back and escape from stress actually contributes to it, that's when it is time to reevaluate.

Here to discuss the impact stress has on sports and how to prevent it from ruining your game are two clinical psychologists who work together. We have Dr. Fran Massino. Thank you for joining us. And Dr. Willy Wiener. They both work at the Institute for Performance Advancement in Manhattan. They work with stress and anxiety in the workplace and on the playing field.

Why is it that stress can manifest itself so prevalently in sports?

WILLY WIENER, PhD: That's a good question. It seems that for as long as people have been playing sports that it has provided some kind of outlet for people to vent a lot of their feelings, their frustrations, their anxieties and their anger perhaps. All too often, however, I think people's approach to competitive sports leads to them feeling more stressed out and undermines the purpose of recreation and relaxation.

PAUL MONIZ: But that's exactly it. You're talking about it being a way to vent. People are trying to vent their own frustrations, and those frustrations may have absolutely nothing to do with their opponent, but when you get in the game suddenly the opponent is the scapegoat. What's happening? What's the process that is happening up here?

WILLY WIENER, PhD: Part of it is adaptive. A lot of the competitive sports -- there's a benefit to approaching it with desire to win, but part of that is, I think, goes all the way back to something that's really much more primitive and adaptive, which is wanting to win. I think when some of those hormones start to kick in, you start to focus singularly on winning the game.

PAUL MONIZ: You go out on a Saturday afternoon -- let's say you're playing a game of football with your friends. All of you are friends aside from the game. You get into the game and suddenly this animal takes over, and your friend becomes really an opponent that you want to crush. It can cause friction in the friendship even after the game is over, especially if you lose.

WILLY WIENER, PhD: Yes.

PAUL MONIZ: So what would you recommend under these circumstances?

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