arousal Stress and Anxiety Randy Couture is an American actor former U.S army Sergeant a retired mixed martial artist and a former Collegiate in Greco-Roman wrestler during his time with the Ultimate Fighting Championship or the UFC he became a three-time UFC heavyweight champion two-time UFC light heavyweight champion an interim UFC light heavyweight champion which makes him a six-time UFC champion and the UFC 13-time heavyweight tournament winner he's the first of seven fighters to hold two UFC championship titles in two different divisions this man's been involved with many high-stakes fights in his career he once said you're nervous because you're afraid of the outcome you can take that anxiety and accept the worst outcome you'll be free and fight like you're able to if losing a fight is the worst thing that has ever happened in your life then you're doing pretty good history is full of athletes who have performed well under pressure and also with those who have performed exceedingly poor under pressure so how does anxiety play a role in the outcomes of these events when preparing ourselves to do an activity whether that be preparing a meal or running a marathon our body will be in a specific state of alertness although this will vary depending on the activity and how motivated we are to do it this is known as arousal Sport and exercise psychologists have studied the cause and effect of arousal Stress and Anxiety in the competitive athletic environment and other areas of physical activity some people use the word arousal Stress and Anxiety interchangeably but for this course we need to Define and differentiate among these three terms arousal is a blend of psychological and physiological activation this varies in intensity along a continuum highly aroused individuals are mentally and physically activated they have an increase in heart rate respiration and sweating arousal is not automatically associated with either Pleasant or unpleasant events again arousal is generally physiological and psychological activation that varies on a Continuum from Deep Sleep to intense excitement stress is a substantial imbalance between physical and psychological demands that are placed on an individual and their response capability under conditions in which failure to meet demands has important consequences anxiety is a negative emotional state with feelings of worry nervousness and apprehension that are associated with the activation of the body anxiety is often perceived as a negative factor however it does not always negatively affect performance in the sports setting anxiety refers to an unpleasant psychological state in reaction to perceived stress concerning the performance of a task under pressure this is the interrelationship among arousal trait anxiety and state anxiety trade anxiety is part of the person this is an acquired disposition that influences Behavior trait anxiety is a personality disposition that is stable over time this disposition predisposes a person to perceive a wide range of objectively non-dangerous circumstances as threatening and to respond to these with disproportionate State anxiety levels trait anxiety predisposes an individual to perceive as threatening a wide range of circumstances that objectively may not actually be physically or psychologically dangerous the person then responds to these circumstances with State anxiety reactions or levels that are disproportionate in intensity and magnitude to the objective Danger the person then responds to these circumstances with State anxiety reactions or levels that are disproportionate in intensity and magnitude to the objective Danger states of arousal are General physiological and psychological activation of the organism that varies on a Continuum from Deep Sleep to intense excitement State anxiety Then refers to the temporary ever-changing mood component it is defined more formally as an emotional state characterized by subjective conscious perceived feelings or apprehension intention that are accompanied by or associated with the activation or arousal of the autonomic nervous system it is a right now feeling of nervousness an apprehension that can change from moment to moment cognitive State anxiety concerns the decree to which one worries or has negative thoughts somatic State anxiety concerns the moment-to-moment change and perceived physiological activation another factor is perceived control State anxiety perceive control State anxiety is the degree to which One Believes one has their resources and the ability to meet challenges to better understand the difference between cognitive State anxiety somatic State anxiety and competitive trait anxiety and Sport the sample questions from the competitive State anxiety inventory too and the sport anxiety scale too a measure of trade anxiety can also help these simple questions can help us to evaluate our anxiety levels the relationship between trait and state anxiety trait anxiety is a behavioral disposition to perceive as threatening circumstances that objectively may not be dangerous and to then respond with disproportionate State anxiety people with high trait anxiety usually have more State anxiety and high competitive evaluative situations than do people with lower trait anxiety the antecedents of pre-performance anxiety an antecedent is a thing or an event that existed before or logically precedes another so in this context what factors affect pre-performance anxiety in athletes this may include things like the fear of performance failure or the unknown the fear of negative social evaluation the fear of physical harm situational ambiguity disruption of well-learned routines and even event importance we can measure arousal and anxiety with physiological signs such as the heart rate respiration rate skin conductance and even biochemistry analysis we can also use the global and multi-dimensional self-report scales to help people measure assess and work with anxiety and arousal levels stress and the stress process you as a student probably are well versed in stress we will review the definition of stress in the context of sport and exercise psychology with this let's define stress stress is a substantial imbalance between physical and psychological demands that are placed on an individual and their response capability under conditions in which failure to meet demands has important consequences stress is a process or a sequence of events that leads to a particular end in order to work with our athletes and help them understand what the pressure associated with dealing with sports we have to be able to understand the stress concept and how we can manipulate stress arousal and even anxiety levels to help optimize performance within this there is a General Adaptation Syndrome hand style a medical doctor and researcher found that when aroused the body is under stress regardless of whether it is anger or joy eustress is a moderate or normal psychological stress interpreted as being beneficial for the experiencer and distress is Extreme anxiety sorrow or pain Dr herself came up with a theory of General Adaptation Syndrome or gas gas is the three-stage process that describes the physiological changes to the body when under stress these changes do not occur in isolated incidents but rather are the typical response to stress these three stages are alarm resistance and exhaustion understanding these different responses and how they relate to each other may help us cope with stress which may be very important to us as academics and also to the people with whom we work in the first phase alarm the body immobilizes to confront the threat which temporarily expends the resources and lowers our resistance in the resistance phase the body is actively confronting the threat and resistance is high if the threat continues the body moves into ultimate exhaustion emotions aren't organized psychophysiological reaction to ongoing relationships with the environment most often but not always interpersonal or social involving subjective experiences observable actions or impulses to act as well as physiological changes emotion is a central feature of many sporting events athletes as well as their supporters can experience many emotions most emotional theorists argue that emotions have the power to motivate and to regulate cognition and behavior in sport to understand the antecedents experience and consequences of emotions theorists have attempted to classify emotions into various categories but one central question is whether some emotions should be considered basic this would require us to evaluate whether some emotions are fundamental to The Human Experience emotions have both a physiological and a psychological component emotions can be positive such as pleasure or negative feelings of Shame common emotions include anger anxiety fright guilt shame sadness Envy jealousy happiness Pride relief hope love gratitude and even compassion different emotions such as anxiety anger and happiness have been found to influence performance either positively or negatively Sport and physical activity participation can influence emotions as well McGrath proposed a model that stress is consistent of four interrelated stages including environmental demand perception of demand stress response and behavioral consequences implications of this stress process for practice intervening at the stress process stage you can intervene during any of the four stages of the stress process or the cycle stage one of the four stage stress process is environmental demand some demand is placed on an individual either physical or psychological stage two is the individual's perception of the environmental demand this is an individual's perception of physical and psychological demands stage 3 is the stress response which is the individual's physical and psychological response to a perception of the situation stage four is the actual behavior of the individual under stress and the final stage of the stress process feeds back into the first the stress process is therefore continuing a cycle stress has a number of implications for practice by understanding this cycle we can Target efforts and attempt to reduce stress among our patients we can also incorporate Stress Management strategies at different times during these stages so how do arousal and anxiety affect performance there are numerous theories that attempt to describe this relationship one of the most compelling relationships that Sport and exercise psychologists study is the relationship either positive or negative between arousal anxiety and emotional states on one hand and performance on the other with all of the focused studies on these two factors researchers have yet to come to a definitive conclusion between arousal and anxiety some of the theories related to arousal and anxiety and their effect on performance include the drive Theory inverted U hypothesis individualized zones of optimal functioning multi-dimensional anxiety Theory catastrophe model reversal Theory and anxiety Direction and intensity we'll start with the drive Theory psychologists first saw the relationship between the arousal and performance as direct and linear the drive Theory indicates that as an individual's arousal or state anxiety increases so does their performance this would suggest that the more psyched an athlete got the better that an athlete should perform this is also used as the basis for social facilitation Theory this is the presence of others which enhances the performance on simple or well-learned skills and inhibits performance on complex or unlearned skills so what about home field advantage during the regular season a clear home field advantage exists for both professional and amateur team sports and dates back almost 100 years the home field advantage occurs for both teams and individual sports and for both male and female athletes however during playoffs there is a proposed home field disadvantage but the evidence supporting it is mixed so even from this home field advantage information and from our personal lives we probably understand that there are limits to this drive Theory I am sure many of us have experienced or seen athletes or individuals who got so anxious that their performance suffered and they end up choking under pressure some of you may have even felt this yourself maybe with a big exam you got so amped up before the exam the year's State anxiety was through the roof so how did you do on the exam chances are you didn't do as well as you were hoping for based on these very issues there is very little scholarly support for the drive Theory another alternative to the drive theory is the inverted U hypothesis the inverted U hypothesis explains the relationship between arousal States and performance this view holds that at low arousal levels performance will be below par the participant is not psyched up as arousal increases so too does performance up to an optimal point where best performance results further increases in arousal can cause performance to decline most athletes and coaches accept the general notion of the inverted U hypothesis however despite acceptance of the hypothesis in general it has recently been subjected to criticism some researchers have asked if this is really the correct shape for the Curve does Peak Performance actually happen at the middle point of arousal for every single athlete and all of the time Yuri Hannon is a Russian sports psychologist who presented an alternative view called The individualized Zone of optimal functioning or the izof model Hannon suggests that top athletes have a zone of optimal State anxiety at which their best performance occurs it is important to understand that the zone of Optimal Performance may not be the same for each athlete in the chart we can see that the best performance zone for athlete a athlete B and athlete C are all in different areas and does not always occur at the midpoint of the Continuum like it does for athlete B outside of the zone of Optimal Performance poor performance occurs this model differs from the inverted U Theory as the Optimal Performance zone is not always in the mid-range of anxiety a person's zone of optimal functioning may be at the lower the middle or even the upper end of the state anxiety continuum Additionally the optimal level of State anxiety is not a single point but rather a bandwidth which means that there is some range for the best performance for an individual athlete there has been some criticism of this Theory as it does not really consider or take into account the effect of anxiety which may result in a detrimental performance as we just looked hannon's izof hypothesis does not address the component of State anxiety which is somatic and cognitive anxiety and their effect on performance in the same way the multi-dimensional anxiety theory predicts cognitive State anxiety or worry is negatively related to Performance somatic anxiety is related to Performance in an inverted you pattern increases in cognitive State anxiety lead to decreases in performance and cognitive anxiety is negatively related to Performance this theory predicts somatic State anxiety which is physiologically manifested is related to Performance in an inverted U and that increases in anxiety facilitate performance up to an optimal level Beyond which additional anxiety causes performance to decline research has not consistently supported this Theory one reason for the lack of support is the fact that the cognitive anxiety may have a detrimental effect on performance the catastrophe model predicts the physiological arousal is related to Performance in an inverted you fashion but only when an athlete is not worried or has low cognitive State anxiety this all changes when anxiety is high for example if the athlete is worrying or is stressed with increases in high cognitive anxiety and worry the increase in arousal reaches a threshold just past the point of optimal arousal and afterward we notice a rapid decline in performance and a catastrophe occurs which is the reason for the name of this model although some scientific support exists for the catastrophe model it is very difficult to scientifically test or evaluate this model the reversal Theory by Kerr from 1999 is slightly different from other theories in that Kerr believed arousal only affects performance dependent upon how the performer perceives this arousal performers with low arousal May perceive this with either negative or positive feelings such as boredom or relaxation similarly performers with high levels of arousal may also perceive this either positively or negative either as excitement or anxiety as the diagram shows performers who perceive their arousal levels as pleasant perform at a higher level than those who perceive arousal as negative emotion Kerr believed that athletes perceived arousal differently and this perception determines how arousal affects their performance the theory introduces the idea that The Athlete's perception of the environment may change or move along a Continuum of pleasant to unpleasant and in turn their level of performance may be altered so how arousal affects performance depends on an individual's interpretation of his or her arousal level arousal can be interpreted as pleasant either excitement or as unpleasant anxiety arousal interpreted as pleasant facilitates a performance while arousal interpreted as unpleasant herza performance while arousal interpreted as unpleasant hurts performance in the bottom line This view is interesting but there's too few studies that have been conducted to draw firm conclusions for years researchers have assumed that anxiety had only negative effects on performance however Studies have demonstrated that an individual's interpretation of anxiety symptoms either is positive and helpful to the performance facilitative or as negative and harmful to the performance which would be debilitative Jones developed a model of how facilitated anxiety and debilitative anxiety interact Jones suggested that viewing anxiety is facilitated leads to Superior performance whereas viewing it as debilitative leads to poor performance stay anxiety is perceived as facilitative or debilitative depending on how much control the athlete perceives they have performers can be trained to effectively use their anxiety symptoms in a productive way to develop a rational appraisal process in relation to their experiences during competition there is no shortage of arousal performance views some things that we do know arousal and state anxiety do not always have a negative effect on performance and interaction and interpretation of physiological and cognitive arousal are more important than actual levels of either arousal is multifaceted there is a physical activation of arousal and an interpretation of that arousal performers can find the optimal mix of these emotions for their best performance these optimal mixes of arousal related emotions are highly individual and very task specific arousal and state anxiety do not always have to have negative effects on performance they can be facilitated or debilitative depending on interpretation self-confidence and enhanced perceptions of control are critical to perceiving anxiety is facilitative some optimal levels of arousal lead to Peak Performance but optimal levels of physiological activation and arousal related thoughts or worry are not the same psyching up strategies should be employed when we're working with athletes but we should use these with caution because it is difficult to recover from a catastrophe if one occurs athletes should have well-practiced self-talk imagery relaxation and goal setting skills to help cope with anxiety how or why does arousal influence performance understanding why arousal affects performance can help us to regulate our arousal at least two things explain how increased arousal influences athletic performance stress increases muscle tension and causes coordination difficulties it also causes attention in concentration changes we see a narrowing of attention where we are unable to survey the entire playing surface shift to the dominant style of play and shifting attendance to the inappropriate and shifting of our attendance to inappropriate cues this is a visual representation of attentional narrowing this is the optimal attentional field associated with a moderate or optimal arousal level this diagram shows that to achieve the optimal arousal is to look straight out in front of you so that there cannot be any distractions in low arousal levels our attention field becomes extremely Broad and in high arousal levels our field of attention can narrow and we can suffer from what is called tunnel vision this means that we may not be able to respond to environmental stimuli as well as we should because of attention narrowing from heightened arousal we can now integrate our knowledge of arousal Stress and Anxiety by applying it to professional practices five important guidelines include identifying optimal combinations of arousal related emotions that are needed for best performance recognizing how personal and situational factors interact to influence arousal anxiety and performance recognize arousal in state anxiety signs tailor coaching strategies to individuals arousal and state anxiety may need to be increased decreased or maintained for each individual and work to develop confidence like other behaviors Stress and Anxiety can best be understood and predicted by considering the interaction of personal and situational factors importance is placed on the performance but not excessively and some certainty exists about the outcome this means that the interaction of personal factors such as self-esteem social physique anxiety and trait anxiety and situational factors such as event importance and uncertainty are better predictors of arousal there is a personal and situational interaction that is important some people may assume that low trait anxious athletes will always be the best performer but that is a mistake additionally situational factors such as the importance of an event may affect an individual along with these factors it results in estate anxiety or arousal of that individual to accurately detect an individual's anxiety level you must know the various signs and symptoms of increased stress and anxiety to help us evaluate arousal and anxiety here is a short list of signs and symptoms that are associated such as cold clammy hands the constant need to urinate perfuse sweating negative self-talk a dazed look in the eye feeling ill or having a headache fillings of apathy apathy is a lack of Interest enthusiasm or concern we may also have cottonmouth or dry mouth we may be sick constantly having difficulty sleeping increased muscle tension feelings of butterflies in the stomach an inability to concentrate and many individuals consistently perform better in non-evaluative situations this is not a comprehensive list but it can help to give you some examples to wrap up arousal Stress and Anxiety sometimes arousal and state anxiety need to be reduced at other times maintained and still other times facilitated this is extremely individualistic and we should look at the individual as we're developing a plan of action