As an athlete, you’ve most likely have experienced nervousness, if you haven’t you’re not pushing yourself. If you 
have experienced nervousness it might have been prior to an important competition, i.e. state final, championship game, qualifying for the Olympics, or even during a 1-RM lift in the gym. Now, go back to that and feel what you felt…really get into the feeling you actually felt before the event. Now remember, what effect did the nervousness have on your performance?
For many athletes and failure to mange or control nervousness leads to a decrease in personal performance. Fortunately, managing nervousness is a mental strength skill that can be learned.
Before I talk about how to mange this energy I want to discuss some important information in regards to nervousness.
All Nervousness Is Not Necessarily ‘Bad’
We tend to think of nervousness as something ‘bad’…something to get rid of. When in actuality, some nervousness can heighten awareness and enhance your personal performance. I’m sure you’ve experience the positive effects of pre-competition nervousness such as, increased focus, physical activation, or self-talk to in form of “healthy” doubts to control overconfidence.
So, instead of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” and getting rid of all nervousness, your goal should be to manage and transform the nervousness into an asset to help increase your athletic performance.
Remember, what you focus on expands, so if you try to stop the nervousness you’ll only increase it and its affect on you. When your focal point is on how to use this energy for the betterment of your performance, that’s when you start to separate yourself form the pack.
Nervousness Shows Up In Two Ways
As I have mentioned in previous posts, nervousness can be experienced both physically (somatic) and mentally (cognitive). This distinction is critical when determining how to manage and control the nervousness.
Symptoms of physical nervousness include increased heart rate, tight muscles, butterflies, profuse sweating, throwing up, irritable bowels and jitters. Symptoms of mental nervousness include worry, racing thoughts, doubts and negative self-talk. It is easy to understand how, if left unchecked, these symptoms can have a negative affect on your performance, isn’t it?
Let me ask you:
- What types of pre-competition nerves plague you?
- What symptoms are dominant?
- Have you been able to control them to your satisfaction?
Targeting the Symptoms
Athletes tend to experience both physical and mental symptoms of nervousness, it’s usually that one is more dominant or has more detrimental effects on athletic performance then the other.
It is the management of the symptoms that I’ll address below. However, if the symptoms have been around for awhile then I strongly suggest you start working with a sports psychologists or NLP Sport practitioner. You see, the symptoms are just an ‘effect’ of a ‘cause.’ And in my experience most nervousness symptoms stem from an unsupportive mental representation.
Because of the uniqueness of each individual it is beyond the scope of this post to go into details about the specific internal representation that might be causing the affects, i.e. nervousness.
Anyway, here are specific targeting strategies to help with anxiety management. We’ll look at two specific techniques, one that targets physical nervousness and the other targets mental nervousness.
Managing Physical Nervousness
Diaphragmatic Breathing – also known as “tactical breathing”
I wrote a post about “Tactical Breathing for Inner Strength” and will cover the basics here again.
- The key for diaphragmatic breathing is to take oxygen-air deep into the diaphragm as opposed to only into the upper portion of the lungs (chest), which is what most athletes typically do when they get anxious.
- Steps to learning effective diaphragm (belly) breathing.
- Lay on your back with one hand resting on your stomach just below your belly button.
- Slowly taking a deep breath.
- Concentrate on bringing the air into the diaphragm. Your stomach should expand or rise as you inhale-and the hand that is on your belly should also rise.
- Slowly exhale-squeeze the muscles in your abdomen to get all the air out.
- This process is for you to get use to how diaphragmatic breathing should feel and look.
- Once you have the cues all set, now stand up.
- Bring rhythm into your breathing by inhaling and exhaling to account.
- Slowly inhale a deep breath over 4 seconds.
- Hold the breath in for 4 seconds.
- Slowly exhale the breath out over 4 seconds.
- Hold the empty breath for 4 seconds.
- Repeat until your breathing is under control.
- Become aware of the tension leaving your body as you exhale
- With practice (during your practice), you will be able to use this strategy to control your nerves moments before a competition.
Managing Mental Nervousness by Managing Self-Talk
- Mental anxiety is basically seeing (or visualizing) an undesired outcome.
- Worry and doubts about one’s ability are to be expected…to a certain point. The key is shift the focus from worry (an undesired outcome) to more supportive and productive thinking that can help your performance.
- Identify or create specific productive thinking that will shift your focus to supportive self-talk. These might be:
- Performance Reminders: This includes instructional talk related to the process of performance such as “aggressive start”, “work from the core”, “tempo”, “fast feet”, “eye on the ball” and other related technique cues.
- Confidence Builders: Talk that reminds you of your preparation and readiness. These night be something like “I’ve trained all year for this, I am ready!” “I made all my practice sessions, I am prepared”, “my combine results are better than ever.”
- Emotional Words: Self talk that gets you in emotionally focused such as “go for it”, “be strong”, and “this is mine”, “start strong – finish stronger”.
- If you’re stuck for how to develop positive self-talk, just listen to some pre-fight interviews with Muhammad Ali or NFL players pre-game, like Drew Brees or Ray Lewis…these guys are role models for positive self-talk!
- Managing self-talk serves two purposes; it will get you thinking effectively, and in doing so, will leave no room for you to worry about worry. Kind of like Alfred E. Newman…”What, Me Worry?”
Practice and plan your tactical breathing and self talk in advance so you know how and when to shift your energy. Managing your nerves will help you achieve your personal and athletic peak performance on the field, in the weight room and in life. Practice and use the simple strategies control your anxiety and achieve your peak performance.
Check out “Mental Strength for Athletic Performance.” The program covers many of the skills in this post; how to develop a mental skills plan and nine audios track the help implement them.
OK, now it’s your turn. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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