The Impact of Stress and Anxiety on Athletic Performance

Dear Colleagues,

Stress is a complex physiological response that involves the activation of the body’s “fight or flight” mechanism. When the body perceives a threat, whether real or imagined, it releases stress hormones which can be detected in blood such as cortisol and adrenaline, and other biomarkers of stress such as alpha-amylase in saliva. While this response is crucial for survival in certain situations, chronic stress can lead to negative effects on an athlete’s physical and mental health, affecting their performance.

Stress and anxiety can significantly impair athletic performance by affecting focus, decision-making, and physical well-being. Excessive stress and pre-competitive anxiety can lead to decreased competitive performance and poor decision-making. Stress can impair an athlete’s ability to concentrate, leading to unexplainable mistakes. On the physical level, stress and anxiety can significantly increase injury risk and impair recovery after exercise. Stress can cause muscle tension, leading to muscle stiffness and increasing the risk of injury; it can also lead to physical symptoms like sweating or contribute to fatigue.

Managing stress and anxiety can be beneficial for athletes’ optimal or improved performance. For such a purpose, different stress management techniques are available and may include but are not limited to deep, slow breathing, HRV training and yoga, visualizing to promote relaxation, identifying and eliminating known stressors, positive self-talk, etc.

The objective of this Special Issue, titled “The Impact of Stress and Anxiety on Athletic Performance”, is to enhance current knowledge in this specific field concerning stress and anxiety in an athletic environment, including how to measure it, how it is influencing athletic performance, and what we can do about it in order to diminish the influence of stress and anxiety on athletes’ performance. Authors are invited to submit case reports, original research papers, and review articles on these topics.

Dr. Zoran Nikolovski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• stress and athletes’ performance
• anxiety and athletes’ performance
• cortisol
• alpha amylase
• HPA axis
• sympathetic system
• stress detection questionnaires
• managing stress and anxiety
• stress coping techniques