How can a Coach Help Athletes with Anxiety?
In this section, we'll go over four skills and behaviors that can help coaches and athletes with anxiety. They include:
- Coaching Support
- Understanding Your Inner World
- Your Inner Voice
Coaching Support
Your behavior as a coach may be contributing to whether or not your athletes experience severe anxiety. A coach sets the stage. He or she sets expectations, shifts motivation, and determines whether or not athletes feel supported after a tough loss. The coach creates the environment. In one study, researchers found that negative rapport between an athlete was a major contributor to athlete anxiety (Baker et al., 2000). Other researchers found that playing for a coach that supported their players psychological well-being led to lower levels of anxiety across the entirety of a season (Smith et al., 2007)
We can either support or thwart our athletes basic psychological needs. Psychologists have discovered that when it comes to motivation, athletes need to feel: they can get better, they have some influence or control, and they belong to a group or something greater than themselves. When those in charge choose the path of thwarting via control and power, subordinate's motivation shift to pressure and fear. When coaches lead via control and/or fear, we see an increase in aggression and burnout, as well as a decrease in performance and well-being (Smith et al., 2011) Controlling coaching and leading doesn't just harm performance; it harms the person.
On the other hand, leading via needs satisfaction helps create tougher, healthier, happier humans. As sports psychologist Dr. Laura Healy reported, "When athletes perceive their coaches to be more autonomy supportive, they report greater satisfaction of their basic psychological needs, and consequently strive for their goals with higher autonomous motives (Healy et al., 2014).”
When it comes to helping athletes with anxiety, coaches should:
- Set realistic expectations- It’s fine to have big goals, but setting expectations that are well-beyond what an athlete is capable of, sets them up for failure and the pressure that comes with trying to achieve something beyond their capabilities.
- Avoid using fear or punishment as a motivator- When fear is a primary motivator, negative anxiety increases.
- Give athletes some autonomy- When we feel like we are being controlled, as if we have no say, our motivation declines.
- Let them see growth- Making progress is one of our foundational psychological needs. We need to feel like we are working towards mastery.
Looking for more on fulfilling our basic needs? Explore Self Determination Theory and Coaching
Understand Your Inner World
If one of your athletes feels pain do you immediately stop everything, take them to the doctor and assume the worst? Or do you explore the sensation– where’s the pain located? Is it sharp or dull? Does it go away or does it linger? As coaches, you explore what the sensation feels like because you are trying to distinguish between whether it’s something to worry about (i.e. an injury) or something that will pass by (i.e., pain related to fatigue). The same principle applies to the emotions and feelings we experience.
The better we are able to read and distinguish the internal signals that our body is sending, the better we are able to use emotions as information to help guide our actions, instead of missing the signal, or moving straight from feeling to reacting. How well we can read, interpret, and reframe our inner experience can impact everything from our motivation to our level of resilience (Strack et al., 2017).
An expert at understanding their inner world is no different than the veteran pilot who needs to merely glance at a gauge instead of reading the label or manual. An experienced athlete can separate pain and injury. A stage performer can distinguish between nervousness and anxiety. An executive understands when her gut is pushing her in the right direction and when she should ignore it.
When testing how individuals work in high-pressure situations, researchers out of Spain found that people could use the anxiety that came along with pressure to their advantage. They could persist longer at a task, reach a higher level of achievement on an academic test, and even have greater job satisfaction. All thanks to the feeling of anxiety. What separated those that were able to use anxiety to their advantage? Whether or not they had clarity on what they were feeling. The researchers concluded, "Individuals who are clear about their feelings are more likely to thrive on anxiety… (Strack et al., 2017)." How do we get clear on our emotions?
- Mindfulness- Emotional Awareness Mediation- A particular form of meditation where you focus on exploring and experience the sensations in your body and mind. The goal is to nonjudgmentally observe and explore the sensations so that you can learn how to distinguish the nuance between feelings
- The emotion wheel is a tool that helps you distinguish between different kinds of emotions. It prods you to push deeper beyond the simple happy or sad. When we can name different emotions, it helps us navigate emotions. We add nuance, much in the same way that an athlete needs to distinguish between a short-term bruise and a long term injury.
Your Inner Voice
Our inner dialogue can go a long way to shaping how we deal with anxiety. It can either add fuel to the fire, causing us to spiral out of control as our inner voice catastrophizes, or it can help extinguish the flame. Often, the only piece of advice we’re given when it comes to self-talk is to stay positive. This well-meaning advice, often leaves athletes unable to do anything once their inner dialogue spirals towards negativity. They feel bad that their inner voice isn’t listening to their command to stay positive. As self-talk influences anxiety, it only makes sense to come up with better ways to deal with our inner dialogue. Fortunately, there are two research backed strategies:
Use a Mantra: Researchers have found that when individuals repeat a mantra (i.e., fast and relaxed) over and over, it actually changes the activity in their brain. The area in the brain related to self-focused thinking decreases. Why? Repeating a mantra over and over again occupies just enough space in your mind, so that your inner voice can’t run away with ruminative thoughts (Berkovich-Ohana et al., 2015).
Use 3rd person to talk to yourself: When we say “I can do this” versus “He (or You) can do this” our brain treats it in a different manner. When we use 2nd or 3rd person to talk to ourselves, we create space between what we’re saying and doing. This space allows us to tackle difficult emotions. When put under stressful situations, if we use self-distanced inner dialogue, replacing I with you, it helps to not only decrease levels of anxiety, shame, and rumination, but it leads to better overall performance (Orvell et al., 2020).
Looking for more? Explore the benefits of 3rd person self-talk.
