Emotions play an essential part in sport performance, yet can sometimes get in the way. Effective management of emotions can help athletes focus, remain calm under pressure, and improve physical performance.
An increasing body of studies in sport focuses on emotions in interpersonal contexts, from expression and regulation of those feelings through interactions to management through interventions and regulation of them. These studies draw upon various theories and research traditions for conceptualizations.
1. Embrace them
Emotions can have a dramatic effect on how we think and act during sport, and also how the body responds. For instance, being sad can negatively impact performance while feeling positive can help enhance it.
Sport brings out many emotions for many people, including joy and happiness, fear or anxiety, shame or guilt, anger or frustration and pride. It is believed that these reactions arise due to events both on and off the field as well as how an athlete perceives their performance.
Anxiety is the most frequently experienced emotion by athletes in sport. This sense of uncertainty stems from anticipating future events or situations and poses a real danger to both physical and mental wellbeing. Anxiety can be reduced through changing perspectives on situations and practicing mindfulness techniques.
Athletes can learn to control their emotional responses using regulation strategies. These may include attempts at changing how long an emotion lasts, its intensity or what exactly they’re feeling – this process of emotion regulation is an integral component of sports psychology.
One of the key components of being an elite athlete is maintaining emotional equilibrium. This means not getting too upset when making mistakes or too excited when winning; finding a healthy balance and remembering that tomorrow brings new possibilities await.
Athleticians need to have the ability to control their emotions at all times, particularly during competitions. Studies have revealed that mood can spread between team members, having an adverse impact on performance. A good example is when one team member becomes upset and their bad mood spreads throughout the squad.
2. Reappraise them
Emotions can help athletes perform at their peak, but they can also become a source of distraction if left unmanaged. Elite athletes understand the significance of controlling their emotions, using various techniques such as accepting positive and negative feelings equally, reassessing feelings after changing situations, seeking support when necessary and asking others for support when needed.
Sport can be an emotionally charged environment for both spectators and athletes, with both groups experiencing and displaying a range of feelings (Jones & Uphill, Citation 2012). Athletes may experience anxiety, fear, sadness, anger joy pride while participating in sporting events; these feelings often arise after events that hold significant meaning to an athlete and can result in various physiological responses.
Negative emotions often contribute to poor performance by decreasing motivation and focus in athletes, while positive ones, such as happiness, may increase motivation and enhance performance. Although emotions and performance may seem to have an inverse relationship – positive feelings might help an athlete feel more confident; but overconfidence could have detrimental effects.
Athletes can manage their emotions in many different ways, including seeking support from coaches, parents and teammates to change their perspective of a situation and make it more manageable. Altering thoughts or actions might help as well; otherwise they could simply ignore it while focusing on other aspects of performance.
Attributing mistakes or performances poorly to their own mistakes and feeling disappointed about them should not be seen as something negative, rather as evidence that one cares about their sport and wants to do better. When considering these negative emotions and their potential long-term repercussions (for instance being denied admission to college of choice or losing big games), athletes need to evaluate whether the punishment outweighs the crime committed.
3. Change the situation
Athletes must manage a range of emotions when competing, from anxiety to anger and fear – and pride. Each can impact performance differently, so it’s essential they know how to cope. Strategies such as relaxation, deep breathing and positive self-talk can help manage negative emotions while increasing performance.
However, these techniques aren’t always effective and may have detrimental repercussions for an athlete’s health. When athletes rely too heavily on these tactics for emotional control purposes and are forced to react inappropriately in moments like an opponent cheats or when referees make poor calls.
Sport literature has featured an increasing number of studies and reviews that investigate interpersonal experiences, expression, and regulation of emotion (Campo et al., Citation2019; Friesen Lane Furley Citation 2015 and Tamminen and Bennett Citation2017). Such investigations typically draw upon Keltner and Haidt’s (1999) broad social-functional approach to emotions as their basis.
This perspective recognizes that emotional experiences are adaptive in that they enable individuals to perceive and evaluate their social environment, the adequacy of personal resources in meeting current challenges, and opportunities to interact with others productively. Furthermore, emotion self-regulation in social contexts is seen as being essential to human motivation while higher level cognitions have the ability to affect both its antecedent triggers as well as behavioral responses of emotional experiences.
Researchers have also drawn upon insights from organizational behavior and leadership studies of sport to investigate the role of emotions in sports organizations and how they can be leveraged to foster commitment among athletes and coaches. They examined effects such as surface acting (regulation of feelings and expression of them to conform with organizational norms), deep acting (regulating both feelings and expressive behavior spontaneously), genuine expression (expressing true emotions spontaneously) on levels of athlete engagement and performance.
These findings indicate that emotions can both enhance and detract from sport performance, yet their long-term effect must be carefully assessed. A basic emotion may quickly arise without one being aware, leading to disruptions of physiological, motoric and cognitive functioning – and higher order cognitions may become overwhelmed in extreme situations.
4. Change the outcome
As part of competing in sports, emotions play a huge part. Although emotions can help keep you engaged and focused on the task at hand, if left unmanaged they can have detrimental effects on performance – for instance if feeling anxious before a competition could disrupt your ability to focus and concentrate resulting in poor performances that have lasting impacts on confidence and motivation levels. On the flip side of things being happy and excited can boost performance by providing motivation throughout competitions.
Thoughts and behavior also play a large part in impacting sport performance. If your thoughts consist of statements such as, “I can’t do this”, or, “My teammates are rubbish”, these can trigger unwanted emotions and lead to poor performance. Therefore, it is vital to learn to manage both emotions and thoughts by changing focus of attention or reframing how you view situations.
Emotions can have an enormous effect on teammates. When everyone’s in a good mood, motivation increases and performance improves; negative or stressful emotions spread quickly from person to person and stifle performance. Athletes have reported engaging in interpersonal emotion regulation for multiple reasons including instrumental (i.e., improving teammate’s performance), altruistic motives (e.g. helping teammates), or self-interested motives (Campo et al. Citation2017).
Manage emotions in sport is crucial for everyone involved – players and coaches alike. Unfortunately, managing emotions is never easy due to being unpredictable and often irrational; taking steps to limit their intensity and frequency will help improve performance under pressure. Understanding your own emotional influencers and discovering ways to modify them are the keys to becoming an effective athlete and improving performance. By following these simple tips you can become a more efficient athlete who pushes themselves harder towards meeting their goals more easily.
