Sports Stress Me Out: Learning How to Address Stress as an Athlete and Bring Joy Back into Training
A notification pops up on your phone reminding you about practice tonight and all of a sudden, you feel a pit in your stomach and dread building in your chest. You begin running through believable excuses for why you can’t go to practice and decide to text your coach that you won’t be attending tonight. Sure, maybe you feel briefly relieved, but then a wave of guilt arrives and you are confused why a sport that used to bring you so much joy now feels like a heavy burden of anxiety and stress.
As athletes and competitors, we pour all of our energy and passion into our sport in order to win and be our best. Athletes wake up everyday thinking about what they can do to improve in their craft only to see small gains or even worse, setbacks and failure. Maybe it's your coach yelling in your ear or a teammate easily mastering something that you can’t seem to grasp. Whatever it is, working hard only to fall short of your expectations and fail at what you wanted to achieve hurts. Being an athlete is hard on our mental health.
Ways to address burnout, fear, and mental fatigue associated with playing sports
As humans, we do everything we can to protect ourselves from things that cause pain. It’s a natural instinct that kicks in, like flinching when there’s a ball flying towards us at full speed. If you are starting to feel stress and dread about sports, here are some ways you can address feelings of burnout, fear, and mental fatigue in order to bring joy back into your training:
Know & Own Your Athlete Identity, take some time to write down who you are as an athlete. Identify things like how you take feedback (i.e. are you better in the moment or do you need some time to digest alone), how you respond to failing, and how you respond to winning. Write down your strengths, your weaknesses, and what you want to improve on. Be curious about your coachability and what motivates you to grow on and off the field.
Name Your Pain, putting a name or label to the negative feelings that come up can help you master them when that stress shows up. If you are getting ready for the big game, it’s probably ok if that stress monster shows up! It shows up for all of us, but by naming and identifying it, you can decide if it gets to enter the game.
Fail Forward, Fail Often, if you are in environments where failing feels like it detracts from your success, seek out chances to fail safely and frequently. That could mean trying a new sport in your off-season, or trying a new position on the team. Challenge is essential to change, and you cannot grow if you cannot change. Effort will always shine brighter than any failure could.
Take Note of the Highs & Lows, everyone (yes, I mean everyone) goes through waves of highs and lows in sports. Take note of when you have these feelings in a journal or workout tracker. What else is going on outside of your sport that could be contributing to those feelings? Maybe your social life is buzzing and it’s distracting you during practice, or you have a big project coming up that isn’t going well. Take note of those feelings and give yourself a timeframe that you’re allowed to be in those highs/lows. Once your time is up, allow yourself to move on and let go.
How we show up is just as important as being physically present. That’s why we want to help you continue to compete in your sport for as long as you can, with as much love as you can. If you are struggling in your area of sport or competition and need help, we can support you.
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Written by: Angela Amato, Masters-Level Counseling Intern
Angela Amato is a Masters-level counseling intern who enjoys working with Maryland-based athletes who are experiencing times of transition. Angela also enjoys working with aging adults across the state of Maryland who are needing support and extra encouragement to prioritize their own self-care. When Angela is not offering counseling services, you can find her coaching athletes.
