The Effect of Arousal & Stress on Performance - Niamh Doyle M.Sc

This article will take a look at the effect of stress and arousal on performance. We will look at some theories on this relationship and will ponder how you can manipulate it to try to curate a winning performance. Is it worth putting substantial effort into your game-day hype? Are the intense butterflies you feel during a competition your downfall? I believe that it is vital to pay attention to this element of your performance.

Although the terms arousal, stress, and anxiety are often bundled together and used interchangeably, it is important to distinguish them. Within the realm of Sport Psychology, there are definitions for each although they overlap each other in parts. Arousal is a mix of the physiological and psychological activity within a person. It is a more general term, highly aroused individuals are mentally and physically activated and they experience an increase in heart rate, respiration, and sweating. Arousal is not automatically associated with either pleasant or unpleasant events, this is the important distinguishing factor. Stress is defined as “a substantial imbalance between demand (mentally or physically) and response capability, under conditions where failure to meet that demand has important consequences” (McGrath, 1970, p. 20). It is a process or a sequence of events that will lead to a particular end. Anxiety is generally seen as a negative emotional state characterised by nervousness, worry, and apprehension. Although anxiety is perceived as negative or unpleasant, it does not necessarily affect performance negatively.

Athletes usually experience high arousal when dealing with pressure and expectations related to sporting competition, i.e. an event that means something to them. Arousal tends to affect an athlete's performance by firstly, increasing their muscle tension. So it, therefore, affects coordination. Too much tension can be detrimental to performance. Secondly, arousal affects attention. Therefore, an athlete’s attention can become either too narrow with too much arousal, or too broad with too little arousal which makes an athlete pay too much attention to their environment and not the task at hand (we don’t want that!).

The Inverted-U hypothesis was put forward by Yerkes and Dodson in 1908 so it's a super old one but is still one of the most popular, likely because it’s pretty simple. It suggests that an increase in arousal will result in the increase of performance only up to a point (of optimal arousal) beyond which further arousal is dysfunctional to the performance. The graph below (tries to) illustrate this hypothesis. It must be noted that in reality, the exact shape of the curve will depend on both the individual and their situation. It's also important to be aware that seemingly small changes in one's professional or personal life can lead to swift adjustments to the curve.

Figure 1: The Inverted-U Curve

Another theory on this topic is the Multidimensional Anxiety Theory (Martens et al., 1990), it demonstrates that when someone has anxious thoughts they will have poorer performance. This theory is quite interesting because it distinguishes between somatic and cognitive anxiety. Cognitive anxiety is the ‘mental’ component of anxiety and is caused by negative expectations about the outcome or by a negative self-evaluation - basically, cognitive anxiety is worrying and negative thoughts. Somatic anxiety covers the physical elements of anxiety. This is perceived as ‘butterflies’ in the stomach, tense muscles, sweating and nausea. Multidimensional Anxiety theory suggests that somatic anxiety should decline once the performance begins but cognitive anxiety may remain high if self-confidence is low. Anxiety felt by the body (somatic anxiety) will have an effect on performance much like that of the Inverted-U hypothesis.

The final theory we will look at is the Catastrophe Model (Fazer & Hardy, 1988) and focuses mainly on the balance between one's physical and psychological arousal. This theory suggests that as long as there are lower thoughts of anxiety, then performance will be best at a medium level of physical arousal. If there is a high level of anxious thoughts (worry), performance will be better at a medium level of physical arousal but will suddenly drop off and become very poor. There is a breaking point when performance decreases dramatically.

Low arousal tends to be a more apparent problem during mundane practices. Athletes tend to experience high arousal more often in games. When an athlete is in a low arousal state they need to be ‘pumped up’ or ‘hyped’. Ways to do this include physically moving. By going through a good warmup with lots of activity arousal levels will naturally increase. Through self-talk athletes can talk themselves into a state of optimal arousal by telling themselves positive things, getting fired up and keeping a good attitude. Athletes can also use imagery that is action-focused to help with their alertness. On the other end of our curve, athletes generally experience high arousal when dealing with excess pressure related to a sporting competition. They become overstimulated and concentration is not on performance anymore. Deep breathing is a simple but powerful tool in reducing levels of stress. Inhaling slow, deep breaths into your stomach and releasing can help lower arousal and nervous energy. Along the same vein, athletes may take some time to undergo Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). By taking one muscle group at a time and tensing/relaxing each for about 3-5 seconds. Systematically going through the body one muscle group at a time until the body feels more loose and relaxed. Similar to ‘hyping up’ when arousal is low, self-talk and imagery techniques can be used for arousal reduction, too. Repeating calming phrases and thinking of calm life experiences can have an immediate and dramatic effect on lowering human arousal.

When we are in a low arousal state we feel relaxed, our focus is loose and our reactions are slower. On the other hand, when we are in a high arousal state, our anxiety often spikes and can interfere with the mind-body synchrony needed for effortless muscle-memory movement. When it comes to optimal performances in sport neither extremes of the curve are ideal. The key for athletes is to learn how to control and regulate their own arousal levels. When working on mental skills, learning how to control arousal levels should be a primary concern as it is a foundational skill on which others can germinate. Finding the middle ground of optimal arousal is something a lot of powerlifters find difficult. I would recommend finding a method to ‘hype up’ when training isn’t that exciting and you’re struggling to get through it, as well as practising competition day arousal states in a meet mock set up.

Only when your body and your mind work in synchrony will you compete at your best. By creating a competition-like environment and getting as “hyped-up” or staying as chilled as you need to be (and practising this many times) you will discover your desired level of arousal to help you perform optimally.

REFERENCES:

Fazey, J. A. and Hardy, L. 1988. “The inverted-U Hypothesis: A catastrophe for sport psychology”. In British Association of Sports Sciences Monograph, Vol. 1, Leeds: The National Coaching Foundation. Martens, R., Burton, D., Vealey, R. S., Bump, L. A. and Smith, D. E. 1990. “Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2”. In Competitive anxiety, Edited by: Martens, R., Vealey, R. and Burton, D. 117–213. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. McGrath, J. E. (1970). A conceptual formulation for research on stress. In J. E. McGrath (Ed.), Social and psychological factors in stress (pp. 10–21). New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Yerkes, R.M. and Dodson, J.D. (1908), The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. J. Comp. Neurol. Psychol., 18: 459-482. doi:10.1002/cne.920180503