Dealing with Stress: Some Lessons from Elite Sport

1. Dealing with Stress: Some Lessons from Elite Sport Lew Hardy

2. Mental Toughness The ability to resist the potentially disruptive effects of stress and produce best performances under most pressure

3. Mental Toughness • Personality characteristics • Coping strategies • Mental skills • Brain mechanisms

4. Personality Characteristics Associated with Mental Toughness • Appraisal • Anxiety, robustness, and resilience • Stubbornness – fight and struggle • Attributional style • Dispositional optimism • Sensitivity to threat

6. Appraisal “Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the views they take of them” (Epictetus, Ancient Greek Philosopher) • Challenge • Threat • Loss

9. Spring time inin Paris

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14. Crooked Thinking in Appraisals Catastrophising Over generalising Discounting the positive Mind reading Predicting the future /scare mongering Black and white thinking Taking things personally

15. “Pain is just weakness leaving the body” Parachute Regiment maxim

17. Anxiety, Robustness, and Resilience • Intensity of symptoms • Interpretation of symptoms • Effects of anxiety – robustness and resilience (recovery) Smith et al (2001); Hardy & Hutchinson (2007); Beattie et al (2010)

19. Stubbornness • Persistence in maintaining goal directed behaviour • Willingness to fight and struggle Middleton et al (2004); Bull et al (2005)

20. “Ugly runs are worth just as much as beautiful runs” Tim Boon, Head Coach, England Cricket Development Programme

21. Attributional Style • Reasons we give for events – e.g., success and failure • Attributional dimensions – controllability, stability, globality • Impact on emotion and behaviour • Elite performers attribute failure to controllable causes Gould et al (2002)

22. Dispositional Optimism • Olympic gold medallists • Hurricane victims • Active not a passive state – opportunity to influence vs no need to do anything • Links to attributional style Gould et al (2002); Carver & Sheier (1998)

23. “Every day is a fishing day, but not every day is a catching day” Adie Byrrell, U17 Head Coach, England Cricket Development Programme

25. Some Cognitive Neuroscience • Neural networks in the brain:Activation – readiness to actArousal – response to new stimuliCoordination – make adjustments if necessary • Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory Pribram & McGuiness (1975); Gray (1970); Gray & McNaughton (2000)

26. Mental Toughness and Reinforcement Sensitivity Mental Toughness Low Reward Sensitivity High Reward Sensitivity Low Hi Punishment Sensitivity

27. Coping Strategies Associated with Mental Toughness • Active Coping • Planning • Suppress competing activities • Vent or control emotions • Social support: advice and emotional • Positive reinterpretation and growth • Acceptance • Denial • Disengagement: behaviourally or mentally

28. Coping Strategies • Problem focused Coping – active coping, planning, suppress competing responses • Emotional focused coping – venting/controlling emotions, social support • Re-appraisal – positive reinterpretation, acceptance • Avoidance – denial, behavioural, mental • Gender differences • Range of strategies

29. Demand-Support models of Coping Demands Supports Constraints

30. See all the Choices

31. Training Mental Toughness • Punishment conditioned stimuli • Practice • Coping skills • Inspirational delivery

32. Everything is good for you if it doesn’t kill you

33. Conclusions • What we think influences what we do and who we are: appraisal, interpretation, and attributions • Mental Toughness is not always pretty • See danger early, find choices and positives later • Wide range of well-rehearsed coping strategies

34. Every threat and loss is an opportunity