4 Very Important Stress Management Techniques for Athletes
Being an athlete is not an easy task. Athletes need to be much disciplined regarding their routine and daily tasks. These athletes are usually under stress issues. There are already many expectations set upon them by their friends and families, coach and citizen of the country which often leads to anxiety. This could sometimes lead to insomnia, depression and another kind of stress.
Athletes must adopt stress management techniques as discussed below:
1. Stress Management Therapy
Illness and stress can be reduced by their proper management. It is found by a study in 2003 by ‘annals of behavioural medicine’ that the athletes who received the stress management training take less time to recover and soon come over their injuries. A licensed psychologist and a clinical intern were included by CBMS where athletes were taught progressive muscle relaxation which helps them to manage their stress difficulties.
2. Relaxation
It is one of the major factors affecting the athletes’ performance. It is the best stress buster not only for athletes but for everyone. Too much of excessive training could cause injury and a defeat could cause stress to the athlete. He/she must take proper rest after every adequate interval of time. A body needs rest to recover the energy so the person has to take enough rest to recover the energy. It will help the athlete to get over the stress issues and to return him back as a competitive performer.
3. Visualisation
It is very important for an athlete to imagine himself as a great achiever to give him an ability and self-confidence to achieve those targets. If one is a runner, he must imagine himself running and crossing all the hurdles in his path and finally achieving the target for which he is trained.
He could also adopt a technique called treasure mapping. All he has to do is hang the photos of what he has imagined achieving where he could see it daily. It will help the person to create a presentation of his visualised goals.
4. Restructuring the Ability
A person comes under stress when he is unable to achieve any specified target or goal. He fails to achieve that due to some imperfection in his ability. He needs to correct that mistake and find out his weakness and get trained to improve that.
He should give all his efforts to restructure his abilities and progress further. He must identify the thoughts that come in his mind and are most stressful. He has to plan everything accordingly to his calibre and performance level. Only then he could reach the heights he always wanted to.
Athletes who keep these stress management techniques in their follow-up routines are much more successful than others. These techniques help the sportsman to get out of the stress and improve his mental as well as physical stability so as to perform better. One must necessarily keep an eye on these stress management techniques for improved mental as well as physical state. It will ultimately help the athlete to have a brighter future in this competitive world.
