When we talk about stress in sports, we don’t just mean something that makes us feel bad. Instead, we think of stress as an ongoing process, where a person evaluates the demands they face in relation to themselves and their environment. These demands, called stressors, come from many sources in the environment, like competition, organization, and personal factors (Fletcher et al., 2006).
To deal with these stressors, a person makes a judgment about whether they see a situation as a threat, harm/loss, or challenge. They then evaluate whether they have the resources to deal with the situation. If they don’t feel they have enough resources, they experience a feeling of threat, which can lead to negative consequences like competitive anxiety (Lazarus, 1991).
A big part of this process is the relationship between the individual and the environment they’re in. We call this a “transaction,” and it describes the dynamic relationship between the demands of the environment and the resources a person has to deal with it (Lazarus, 1991).
To manage stress, athletes are taught different strategies to cope with the demands of their sport. These strategies might involve changing how they think, how they feel, or how they behave in response to the situation (Lazarus, 1991).
Fletcher, D., Hanton, S., & Mellalieu, S. D. (2006). An organizational stress review: Conceptual and theoretical issues in competitive sport. In S. Hanton, & S. D. Mellalieu (Eds.), Literature reviews in sport psychology (pp. 321373). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science.
Lazarus, R. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.
