Question

Discuss are some of the impacts of arousal, stress, and anxiety on sports performance.

Answer 1

Impacts of arousal, stress and anxiety on sports performance:-As research has shown that when arousal, stress and anxiety is low or high, perfomance in sports will be poor however if these all are in moderate level, performance will be optimal. The impact of these three on sports performance can be understood by below mentioned points.

(1) Low level of arousal, stress and anxiety leads to poor performance because in this situation athlete seems to be lethargic, unaware, resting most of the time and low in confidence. Apart from this there could be other negative impacts on the athlete such as a change in perception where he/she may disregard the entire sport if performs poorly, and lack of motivation for further play.

As the level of arousal, stress and anxiety increases upto a minimal value, the athlete's performance also gets improved.

(2) High level of arousal, stress and anxiety also leads to poor performance as in this situation athlete goes into unrealistic optimism or overconfidence along with certain cognitive biases. As level of these three decreases upto a minimal value, the athlete gets good going with the performance.

(3) So a minimal level of these three factors is very important to start up, boost up and to give necessary physical and mental effort for the sport activity.