The world of sports has a great capacity to emotionally involve those who enter it; and if we talk about the world of professional or semi-professional sports competition, the intensity of that intense experience multiplies, for better and for worse.
Athletes must face daily situations that not only require technical skill; It is also essential to develop psychological self-regulation skills something that is reflected both on a subjective level (the degree of well-being or discomfort experienced) and on an objective level (sports performance and health).
In this sense, competitive anxiety is a key phenomenon, since in addition to influencing the way in which the athlete performs when trying to achieve their goals, It is one of the elements to take into account in the prevention of injuries and in recovery after an injury has already occurred. Luckily, there are ways to learn to manage it properly.
Below we will see how the management of competitive anxiety influences the risk of suffering injuries or relapses, an issue of great importance for those who dedicate a good part of their time to competing or trying to beat their own records.
1. Increases the risk of self-sabotage
Anxiety in sports competition situations increases the risk of self-sabotaging behaviors, which are those that we practice unconsciously and that go against our interests and objectives.
Some of these self-sabotaging behaviors arise from self-fulfilling prophecies that is, believing that we will do wrong a movement or a chain of movements required in the competition, a thought that ends up being fulfilled in reality because our attention is divided and a part of us anticipates that this action will not be executed perfectly.
That is, when we harbor these types of beliefs about what will happen to us, attention is divided and the risk of losing coordination increases and failing in exercises that under normal circumstances we master. And we must forget that competitive anxiety is, deep down, a form of anticipatory anxiety: we fear a hypothetical reality that, due to that feeling of panic or loss of control over what we do, ends up giving rise to a vicious circle of Intense stress and prediction of self-sabotage.
2. Tendency to not pay attention to the body’s own signals
Dysfunctional perfectionism is one of the biggest enemies that athletes have, since It pushes them to make decisions with poorly measured consequences regarding their body and to carry out reckless activities that put their physical integrity at risk.
This perfectionism leads to overlooking the signals that the body itself sends and that in other situations would indicate when it is necessary to stop to rest or when the “machine” is being pushed too much.
That is why it is so important, especially in competitive sports, to always listen to our body and always identify the signals that the body itself emits that tells us that we should stop.
3. Increases the risk of overexertion
Poor stress management can also lead us to try to overcompensate by trying too hard thus increasing muscle and joint wear.
Some athletes tend to push their bodies to the limit both in training and in competitions, due to a lack of competitive anxiety management, which usually ends up causing serious injuries to their body.
4. Auto-suggestion
Competitive anxiety leads us to self-suggestion to the point of assume that we have recovered from an injury early causing those wounds to not heal completely.
Often, excessive self-confidence ends up having this type of counterproductive effects, since the natural times that the body needs to recover from an injury are not respected or taken into account.
This has very negative psychological effects on the athlete and also directly affects your self-esteem and self-efficacy
5. Increases the risk of suffering psychological problems
Finally, poor management of stress and competitive anxiety can cause other psychological disorders to develop in the person due to the snowball effect, or even causes insomnia. This, in turn, makes it more difficult to concentrate on what you are doing due to general discomfort and lack of rest so errors in coordination of movements are more likely to arise.
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PsychologyFor. (2024). Anxiety in Sports and Its Relationship with the Risk of Injuries. https://psychologyfor.com/anxiety-in-sports-and-its-relationship-with-the-risk-of-injuries/