Arousal, stress & anxiety
Unit 3: Sport & exercise psychology
In this report I will describe and explain the impact that arousal, stress and anxiety have on an athlete’s performance. I will also analyse arousal, using results from an experiment, to see if it has any effect on an athlete’s performance.
What is stress?
Stress can be defined as “a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.” Stress can be found in normal everyday situations, but you can also find yourself in stressful situations during a sporting event. Not all stress is bad. There are 2 types of stress: eustress and distress:
Eustress
This is the form of stress that is good and positive. It energises the athlete, so they have a greater amount of energy. However, the large amount of energy is short term therefore when all the energy is used up it can lead to distress. Eustress can help motivate an athlete and push them to the best of their abilities, they do this because they want to accomplish something e.g. win a game of football. Overall it gives the athletes a sense of fulfilment. A positive impact of eustress is that they usually gain intrinsic motivation; this is when athletes perform for
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State anxiety is the way we respond to certain situations (not necessarily a sporting situation) The state is everchanging therefore the more state anxiety, the more apprehensive you are about your environment. An example of state anxiety is before a cup final in football. Before the big game your state anxiety is high because you are worried about the situation and the outcome. While in the game your state anxiety decreases because you are not thinking about the situation as much. However, if your team is rewarded a crucial penalty kick, you would refuse to take it because your levels of state anxiety are so high that you consider the situation extremely