Sports Stress-Busters
Playing intercollegiate sports can be serious stress. You don’t want to let your fans down, your coaches can be screaming at you from the sidelines, you have to push your body beyond its limits and you are continually under pressure about getting drafted to the pros.
Not to mention the whole pressure of getting recruited and filling out applications and that’s even before you get to play sports at college.
To deal with all these pressures, student athletes turn to all kinds of unhealthy behaviors, ranging from steroid use to fights off the field against their opponents.
But these unhealthy habits don’t really reduce stress in the long run; they actually create more problems for you.
We don’t think you should let a little bit of stress intimidate you away from college sports. So here’s some things you can tell yourself when the going gets tough.
- Remember why you first got into sports—they are supposed to be fun. So when the pressure is really high, remind yourself that it’s just a game.
- Anything worth achieving is rarely easy. If it was you’d be bored and not stressed at all. The challenge is what makes the victory that much sweeter.
- Mistakes are a necessary part of learning anything. Very simply, if we don’t make mistakes, we probably won’t learn. So remind yourself that mistakes, rather than being things to avoid at all cost, are really stepping stones to success. They give us the information we need to adjust and improve.
- Do not confuse worth with performance. There is a difference between what you do and who you are. Don’t measure your worth as a person in terms of how you compete. So you are more than who you are on the field; hang out with friends and do other activities so you don’t see yourself as a one trick pony.
- Try to like and respect sport opponents. Some coaches and athletes think that proper motivation comes from anger or hatred for the opponent. We disagree. Sports should promote sportsmanship and an appreciation that opponents, far from being the “enemy,” are fellow athletes who make it possible to compete.
- Do your best. Instead of concentrating on winning or losing, focus on your own performance. You can control your own performance, but not the game. That should reduce your stress.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Sports and Drugs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 30th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
sing and dance…even in the game helps too! Well, that is what I use to do.
http://www.studlete.com