With emerging evidence suggesting that professional esports players experience a range of psychological demands relating to their performance (e.g., Leis et al., 2022 ; Poulus et al., 2020 , 2022b ; Smith et al., 2019 ), there is a need for evidence-based stress management strategies in esports
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Stress Management Strategies in Esports: An Exploratory Online Survey on Applied Practice
Oliver Leis, Matthew Watson, Laura Swettenham, Ismael Pedraza-Ramirez, and Franziska Lautenbach
Stress Management and Athletic Performance
Gretchen Kerr and Larry Leith
The authors investigated the effects of a stress-management program on performance, mental rehearsal, attentional skills, and competitive anxiety. The subjects included 24 male and female, international-caliber gymnasts, matched into pairs and assigned to either an experimental or control group. Over an 8-month period, both groups completed attentional, competitive anxiety, and mental rehearsal inventories and received performance scores from competitions. The experimental group received a stress-management program, based upon Meichenbaum’s stress inoculation training. Compared with the control group, the experimental group demonstrated superior performance, mental rehearsal, and attentional skills. Competitive anxiety levels were significantly higher for the experimental group, perhaps due to an increase in facilitative rather than debilitative anxiety. Specific implications for optimizing athletic performance are discussed.
Sports Injuries and Stress Management: An Opportunity for Research
James O. Davis
Several studies report that psychological factors, especially stress, are related to sports injuries, and while stress management techniques have often been found to facilitate sport performance, these reports have not included information about the effects of stress intervention on injury rates. This article reexamines two sport psychology programs by investigating the injury data collected by athletic training personnel before, during, and after two university varsity teams practiced progressive relaxation during team workouts. Major findings include a 52% reduction in injuries for swimmers and a 33% reduction in serious injuries for football players. Discussion focuses on methods of injury data collection by sport psychologists, questions about the nature of the stress/injury relationship, and possible interventions.
The Effects of Two Stress Management Training Programs on Cardiorespiratory Efficiency
Susan G. Ziegler, James Klinzing, and Kirk Williamson
The effects of two stress management programs on the cardiorespiratory efficiency of eight male cross-country runners were investigated. Oxygen consumption and heart rate data were monitored on a maximal oxygen consumption tradmill run. A week later each subject completed a 20-min submaximal run (at a constant workload approximating 50% of each subject's maximal oxygen consumption run). Based on these scores, subjects were divided into three groups: control, stress innoculation training, and stress management training. Subjects in both training groups completed a mental training program including EMG relaxation training, cognitive coping strategies, and one type of imagery training. Results of the 20-min post submaximal run indicated significant differences in cardiorespiratory efficiency between both training groups and the control group. No differences emerged between the training groups.
An Investigation of Two Stress-Management Techniques in a Field Setting
Ian W. Maynard and Peter C.J. Cotton
The aim of this study was to investigate Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, and Smith’s (1990) contention that stress-management techniques should be matched to the symptoms manifested by performers. Subjects, 20 male collegiate field hockey players, responded to the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) on four occasions prior to an important hockey match. Subjects were then placed in two intervention groups: applied relaxation (somatic anxiety; n = 6) and positive thought control (cognitive anxiety; n = 8). Six additional subjects formed the control group. Subjects completed a 12-week intervention in a field setting. Results suggested that reducing anxiety with a method directed at the performer’s dominant anxiety type is more efficacious. A secondary aim was to further investigate the anxiety-performance relationship using an intraindividual performance measure. Somatic anxiety was found to account for 22% of the variance in field hockey performance. Polynomial trend analyses failed to produce significant relationships between the CSAI-2 subscales and performance.
Cognitive-Affective Stress Management Training with High Performance Youth Volleyball Players: Effects on Affect, Cognition, and Performance
Peter R.E. Crocker, Rikk B. Alderman, F. Murray, and R. Smith
Cognitive-Affective Stress Management Training (SMT) is a coping skills training program designed to help athletes control dysfunctional stress processes (Smith, 1980). The present quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of SMT on affect, cognition, and performance in high performance youth volleyball players. Members of Alberta's Canada Games men's and women's (under 19 years of age) volleyball teams were assigned to either an experimental treatment group or a waiting-list control group. The treatment program consisted of eight modules, approximately 1 week apart, that allowed subjects to learn and apply somatic and cognitive coping skills. The results indicated that the treatment group emitted fewer negative thoughts in response to videotaped stressors and had superior service reception performance in a controlled practice compared to the control group. There were no interpretable differences between groups for either state anxiety (CSAI-2) or trait anxiety (SCAT). The cognitive and performance measures provided converging support for Smith's program. The results are discussed in terms of coping skills training, theoretical issues regarding the measurement of anxiety, and possible affect-cognition system independence.
A Follow-up of Cognitive-Affective Stress Management Training
Peter R.E. Crocker
The Relationship Between Mindfulness and Life Stress in Student-Athletes: The Mediating Role of Coping Effectiveness and Decision Rumination
Mariana Kaiseler, Jamie M. Poolton, Susan H. Backhouse, and Nick Stanger
The role of dispositional mindfulness on stress in student-athletes and factors that mediate this relationship has yet to be examined. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the facets of mindfulness and life stress in student-athletes and whether these relationships are mediated through coping effectiveness and decision rumination. Participants were 202 student-athletes who completed validated measures of dispositional mindfulness, student-athlete life stress, decision rumination and coping effectiveness in sport. Results indicated that the acting with awareness and nonjudging facets of mindfulness were negative predictors of life stress, whereas the observe facet was a positive predictor of life stress. Mediation analyses revealed that these relationships were mediated through coping effectiveness and decision rumination. Findings provide new insight into the role dispositional mindfulness plays on student-athlete perceptions of life stress and implications for practitioners are discussed.
Stress Management in Physical Education Class: An Experiential Approach To Improve Coping Skills and Reduce Stress Perceptions in Adolescents
Christin Lang, Anna Karina Feldmeth, Serge Brand, Edith Holsboer-Trachsler, Uwe Pühse, and Markus Gerber
In most physical education (PE) syllabuses, promoting life skills constitutes an important educational objective. The aim of this study was to implement a coping training program (EPHECT) within regular PE and to evaluate its effects on coping and stress among vocational students. Eight classes from a vocational school were selected for study; four were allocated to the intervention group (IG) and four to the control group (CG). The study examined intervention effects between pre- and postintervention, and postintervention and 6-months follow-up. Compared with the CG, the IG showed improved coping skills from pre- to postintervention. From postintervention to follow-up, stress decreased for the IG. A path analysis suggests an indirect effect on stress perception at follow-up via improved adaptive coping skills. The findings support EPHECT as a positive contribution to the development of adaptive coping skills. The project further shows how physical educators can translate psychological theory into practice.
Improvement Predictors in a Workplace Program Promoting Healthy Lifestyle Habits
Thiffya Arabi Kugathasan, Jo-Anne Gilbert, Suzanne Laberge, and Marie-Eve Mathieu
, alcohol consumption, and stress management) in employees who took part in a WHPP targeting multiple LHs and who had the potential to improve at baseline. The secondary objective was to identify predictors of improvement in certain health risk factors, such as stress levels at work and body mass index (BMI
