Sport invokes emotion. For a
sportsperson the emotions they experience will be the difference between
realising their potential or instead falling short. Yet too many sportspersons
underestimate the power of emotions or don’t even think of it in the first
place. Most people, let alone sportspeople don't understand what an emotion actually is, let alone the important differences between emotions, feelings, and moods.
In this blog I will explain what emotions are, and then why negative
emotions are the enemy of sports performance and positive emotions should be
your best friends.
I suggest you read this blog a
few times - I’m going to pack lots of information into a short space. Take a
deep breath – here we go!
An 'emotion' can be thought of
as an electrochemical spark in the limbic system of our brains. This gives real
physiological changes in the body which we experience (through our nerve
endings around our visceral organs) as 'feelings'. An ‘emotion’ is not a ’feeling’,
and the overall experience of emotion plus feeling plus stimulus plus cognition
is ‘mood’. There are 6 basic emotions – fear, anger, surprise, sadness,
joy/happiness, disgust – everything else is a ‘blend’ of these.
Emotions are linked to our
thoughts and our bodies, our attention and our focus. They provide our
motivation, which can be thought of as “movement through emotion”. Negative
emotions motivate us to move away from something and positive emotions motivate
us to move towards. The feelings associated with negative emotions tense us up.
Positive emotions promote feelings that relax us.
Emotions are linked to our
attention and focus. Our attention and focus guide our thoughts. Our thoughts
dictate our behaviour, which creates our results.
With me so far? You may want to go back and read all that again!
Let’s get to the practical
bit, and what the correct emotional state is for ultimate sports performance. In
a nutshell, positive emotions are your
friends, and negative emotions your enemies.
For the ultimate sports
performance a person needs to be in the state of ‘flow’, which I define as “easily
and effortlessly and unconsciously doing the right thing at the right time in
the right way for the right effect”. This will only be possible if you have a
positive emotion present.
Negative emotions create
tension in the body, positive emotions promote relaxation. In sport if your
body is tense you will be working against yourself – like you are driving with
the brakes on. If you have a positive
emotion you will be relaxed – allowing yourself to be efficient and only using the
muscles that are required. This means
that you can be more efficient, faster, more accurate, and your conditioning
will last for longer.
What we give focus and pay
attention to we unconsciously move towards. Negative emotions concentrate our
focus and attention on what we don’t want to have happen. Positive emotions
concentrate our focus on what we want to have happen. I would suggest that in
sport the positive emotion wins again, allowing us to focus clearly and give
the appropriate attention to performing well.
Most sports require a suppression of pain during
performance. Pain is there to move you away from the source of that pain – it is
there to stop you from causing yourself damage. Pain is a subjective
experience. If negative emotion is present the
subjective experience will be worse, if positive emotion is present the pain
will be less or not there at all. I wonder, how much more would you do with a
positive mind-set?
Here are some examples of
emotions in sports performance, and how we can flip a negative into a positive.
Our self-talk and metaphors
help to shape our emotions. Think of a cyclist who may want to “attack the
hills”. What emotion is he creating, positive or negative? Think about the
supporting structure to the metaphor – what is he paying attention to? I would
suggest that there will be a negative emotion present and he will be paying
attention to the challenge, the struggle, and the threat. Would it not be
better to change the metaphor, maybe to have the cyclist “flying up the hills”?
Notice the more positive emotion and thought structure that this supports, and
imagine now how the body will respond in kind.
A sprinter may be on the starting
block thinking “I can’t false start”. He is still paying attention to what he
doesn’t want to happen, and in doing so the negative emotion will be present ‘assisting’
him in poor performance. It may be better for him to think “start clean”.
Many fighters feel the need to
get ‘aggressive’ or ‘angry’ before a fight, as they believe that these negative
emotions will create the right physical and mental state to perform well. They’re
wrong. They are just creating an environment where they won’t perform to their
best – an environment with tension, incorrectly directed focus and attention,
and inefficient motivation. As a suggestion ‘excitement’ may be the correct
state. Excitement is the angel to anxiety’s devil. They are the same yet polar
opposites. Both have similar feelings – yet with anxiety comes tension whilst
excitement brings relaxation allowing flow. Both have sharp focus and attention
yet excitement will let you pay attention to what you need to be doing.
I say that sports performance
relies 100% on the mind. Sure, you need technical ability and conditioning –
yet if your mind isn’t in the right place you won’t even get to training in the
first place! The emotion you hold in your mind will directly affect this
mind-set – it provides your motivation.
I have just briefly skimmed
through the role that emotions play in sports performance, yet still have
provided masses of information. Perhaps as you re-read this blog you can learn
how to utilise this information to your advantage, and start to achieve the
sports performance you are capable of.
I regularly provide my
Ultimate Sports Performance (USP) workshops to clubs, groups and gyms. Emotions
are just one of the many points I can cover. If you are interested in hosting me
for one, please don’t hesitate getting in touch via www.garyturner.co.uk. I regularly work
with individuals too utilising a host of psychological interventions to help
you achieve top performance. If you want me to work with you, please don’t hesitate
to contact me!
