Hi, I'm Sarah Williams, and
I'm a sport and performance psychologist at the University of Birmingham.
And my research focuses
on stress, particularly what might influence how we see stress.
Do we see it positively or do we see it negatively?
And what might that positive or negative influence do to us as an individual?
And importantly, how can we teach people to see stress more positively
so that we can gain the benefits from it?
So I first became interested
in this area of research based on my own experiences playing sport.
So I played a lot of sport growing up and I realised that
often in those competitive situations I would get feelings of stress.
But sometimes I would play well despite feeling stress, and that stress
would even enhance my performance.
Whereas other times
I might be experiencing similar symptoms of stress but not play so well.
And really that got me thinking why in certain situations did I perform
well when I was stressed but in other situations I didn't?
And that's what really drove my area of research, trying to understand
what might influence stress being seen as good compared to a bad thing,
and how can we harness stress so it can enhance our performance in whatever we do.
Now I'm now going to answer some of your questions about stress.
First up, FlyerzHarborne has asked, "How do we manage gameday stress,
particularly during a tournament when players are tired?"
Yeah,
that's a good question, because if we think about tournaments,
when we're asked to play in a lot of competitive matches,
we can often get very, very fatigued after those matches.
One of the issues with stress is it can also make us feel quite tired at times
because we think about the stress response.
Our heart is beating faster.
We're really switched on.
We're really, really focused.
So my advice here would be that in between games
of a tournament, particularly if there's a long duration,
the first thing you want to do is first of all focus on something else,
have some of that downtime, whether it's a Sudoku puzzle,
listening to music, maybe just chatting to your teammates to try and put that next
competition, that next match out of your mind.
Once that match then comes closer.
That's when you can start thinking about it.
So if you've played two or three games, you might be feeling quite tired.
But when you start focusing and thinking about that upcoming event,
what's going to happen
is that will automatically generate more of a stress response for you.
Competition is a form of stress.
Our heart starts beating more.
We start thinking about things.
We start getting a bit more concerned maybe about it.
And what we can do is we can feed off that.
That's our bodies
way of telling us, starting to get ready and automatically it psychs up a bit more.
It makes us more alert, more prepared to perform.
So in tournaments, using that stress can be really beneficial
to help us prevent feeling tired when we then go in to play the next match.
Okay.
So this question is from beck_lockwood, who says, "Children
seem to suffer the effects of stress more intensely than ever before.
Are there particular techniques
that would help them harness stress to improve their well-being?".
So one of the key things, first of all, is to teach them the benefits of stress.
So often when they feel stressed, they might be experiencing certain
sensations in their body physiologically, like their heart rate or feeling
sweaty palms, feeling, you know, they need a drink.
They might feel a bit sick.
They might feel very anxious about something.
A key thing to do here is to remind them that that is their bodies' way
of preparing them to perform to the best of their ability.
So they have an upcoming exam and maybe a few days beforehand,
they're starting to get those nerves, remind them that that's their body
getting ready to perform well in that exam.
What that can do is that can help them accept those responses.
And rather than panicking when they start to experience those those elevations,
they experience them and actually think more positively about them.
I think, yes, I'm starting to prepare.
This is going to go well
and that can just help them go into that exam or whatever it is
that they're feeling stressed about in a much more positive frame of mind.
Now we can use other techniques for them as well.
So things like using imagery or visualization can really go a long way
in helping them when they might be feeling slightly hesitant about upcoming events.
So by simply helping them imagine themselves in that situation,
whether it's an exam or a sporting competition,
imagining themselves, feeling these elevations of stress,
but seeing themselves performing well, maybe hearing people
cheering them on or or being able to feel really positively in that moment.
When they then come to experience that moment,
they're much more likely to feel more positive about it
because they've already experienced it in their mind.
Okay.
Now, tara_cain says, "My job is very public-facing.
So I feel a great deal of stress constantly.
I sort of thrive off it.
But can it be damaging to me, I mean, in the long term?".
That's a great question.
It's a really nice example of how stress can be positive.
So you see here she's talking about thriving off that stress.
The stress isn't always a bad thing and it can sometimes
be really beneficial for us.
If we think about stress, there are different types.
So we have what we call acute stress, which is more short, short term.
So maybe it's an upcoming sporting competition or presentation
at work or an exam, but we might also have this more long-term
what we sometimes referred to as chronic stress.
So that might be something like financial difficulties
or maybe we've had a family bereavement, so that stress is much more longer term
rather than just being in the lead up to an important competition.
We need to do more research
to try and work out really how we can harness stress to the best of his ability.
But we tend to think at the moment is that more short term stress can be more
easily seen to be more positive because it's our bodies way
or it's our way of telling our body that we're preparing to perform well.
Whereas there's more long-term stressors.
Sometimes we might get to argue and say,
what are the benefits of feeling stress of a family bereavement?
It's much harder to try and understand the positive effects of that.
But let's say we do need to do much more research
in this to try and understand how we can harness stress or how we can prevent it.
Being more debilitating if it is a more longer-term stress.
Okay, so Claire Belkadi says, "Can stress help me run a sub
two-hour half marathon again please?".
Well, if we think about performance under pressure, we think about competitions.
Competition is a form of stress.
One of the best things I tend to say to athletes is that, you know,
if you're thinking about world records, when are they ever broken at training?
They're not.
They're always broken
often in the finals of the competition when it really, really counts.
With all types of sport, whether it's running
or whether it's competing in other levels.
You know, there are so many things that athletes will do
to make sure that they're performing at the best of their ability.
They will follow an excellent training plan.
They will make sure they have the best sporting equipment.
They will make sure they've had the right amount of sleep the night before.
The key thing with sports and performing to the best of our abilities
is often that on the day competition and how we as an individual process that.
Often when we're racing compared to if we may be training,
we can run that little bit faster because we are experiencing
those responses to stress in that moment of competition that we wouldn't
naturally respond to or we wouldn't naturally experience in a training run.
So I would say absolutely can stress help you run that sub-two hour half-marathon.
The key is to make sure
you've done everything else right so that you're in the best shape
when you go into that competition.
And then on the day use those feelings of stress, use it
elevations in heart rate, those nerves, that anticipation, that excitement
to really fuel your performance and make sure that you are able
to run that little bit quicker and to get that slightly quicker time.
Okay.
Our next question is from Caroline Durbin, and she asks, "How
can we recognize the difference between healthy stress and unhealthy stress?".
And that's interesting because if we think about the responses
that we get when we feel stressed, often, there isn't really much difference.
So it's very hard to recognize from an outside point of view
the difference between healthy and unhealthy stress.
So if someone's stressed, they often feel there's elevations in their physiology,
like their heart rate.
Maybe they're feeling sweaty palms, maybe they've got that dry throat.
Nerves-wise, they might have that sort of slightly feelings of anxiety
or those concerns.
Simply, if they're also feeling stress is a good thing,
they're often likely to experience the same things.
So experiencing those elevations at heart rate, experiencing those sweaty
palms, that dry mouth, feeling the slight levels of anxiousness or concern.
So actually the responses that we get when stress is seen as being positive
or negative, can often be really, really similar.
The key thing between them is how we perceive those responses.
So do we see those responses as being something
that's going to be helpful for us, that's
going to get us in the right frame of mind to perform to the best of our abilities?
Or do we panic when we experience those sensations and worry that that's
going to impede our performance, so that is very, very detrimental to us.
And so very much where the stress is seen as being positive or negative
can often come down to that individual
and how they perceive the responses they experience.
Okay.
So our next question from mightypinks1s,
"How can we support our teammates when they're feeling stressed?"
This is an interesting one because this is
something that I've experienced playing playing team sports all my life.
You know,
sometimes you might get a teammate that suddenly says to you
one day before a competition, maybe on the morning of the competition,
maybe a few minutes before it's about to start.
You know, I'm feeling a bit nervous or I'm feeling a bit stressed today.
Something doesn't quite feel it doesn't quite feel right.
And often if we think about it, what we tend to do,
if somebody says that to us, is we immediately
think that stress isn't a good thing.
So our initial response or our knee jerk response tends to be, don't worry,
you'll be absolutely fine.
It's okay.
Try not to be nervous.
And what that can do is that can often make the person feel even worse
because they're suddenly thinking, I shouldn't be feeling nervous.
I need to try and suppress these nerves I'm experiencing.
So what I tend to do when somebody turns around to me
and says to me, You know, I'm feeling a bit nervous today,
a bit worried about what's going to happen, is I'll immediately
try and get them to think about that stress in a more positive way.
So my instinct or my response to them is always, that's not nerves.
That's nothing to worry about.
That's not stress.
That's your body telling you that you're ready to perform today.
So maybe it might be a more important competition.
Maybe it's a knockout game, or maybe it's a relegation battle, and all of a sudden
that player is experiencing responses that they wouldn't normally get.
And what I tell them is, it's because today's more important, you know,
your body is very much preparing you today to perform even better than
you're normally capable of,
because it knows
the importance of this event and knows the importance of you performing
really well.
And what I found is by simply telling people that,
it immediately changes how they perceive the responses
they're experiencing, it can help them really thrive off it
rather than panicking and worrying that they might not do as well.
So we need to change how those how our teammates experience stress,
and that could really help them perform better in those moments of competition.
Okay, our next
question from em_peers24, "How
do I prevent myself from feeling too overwhelmed by stress?
Or is there a way I can harness this to aid my performance?".
That's a great question, and there absolutely
is a way that you can prevent yourself feeling too overwhelmed.
And it all comes down to your perceptions of those responses to stress.
So when you get stressed,
you will experience certain physiological and psychological sensations.
So it might be there's negative concerns.
There's elevations in your heart rate or perhaps you don't want to eat.
You might feel a little bit sick, a little bit worried.
The key that you need to do there is you need to remind yourself
that those responses are your body's way of preparing you,
so your body knows that something might be coming up.
Maybe it's an exam,
maybe it's a job interview, maybe it's an important competition.
And your body knows that
that's an important event and it wants you to do really well in it.
So it's your body's way of preparing itself.
So the elevations in heart rate, for example, are to deliver
blood to your brain and to your muscles so that you can perform well, either
cognitively making sure you remember the correct answers in an exam, for example.
Or maybe from a motor performance point of view, supplying your muscles
with oxygen so that you can run that bit quicker, for example, in a competition.
So by simply reminding yourself that that's what's happening in your body.
Your body is getting itself ready to perform.
That can help prevent you feeling overwhelmed.
So see those responses as a positive thing rather than a negative thing,
and automatically that will help you to not be overwhelmed by them.
By doing that, that's simply going to aid your performance
because rather than getting worried about those responses,
you can then just use those responses to catapult you to that improved
standard to what you would do normally if you were worried about those responses.
Okay so this question is from Thomas Badger,
and he says, "What practical application does your research have?
Can harnessing stress be the difference between a gold and a silver medal?"
Well, one of the things I love most about my research is I feel it has huge
practical applications.
You know, so many people are stressed,
whether it's athletes or people in the workplace.
You know, nowadays we all experience stress.
And because my research focuses on how to help people see stress
more positively and how to use certain techniques
to help them see that stress more positively,
I feel it can have a huge beneficial effect on all types of people
to help improve their health, their performance,
but really importantly also their wellbeing.
If we think about stress in terms of, you know, can harnessing it
be the difference between a gold and silver medal?
I would say absolutely can be.
And not just between the difference between a gold medal and a silver medal,
but also the difference
between winning a gold medal and perhaps not even winning a medal at all.
If we think about elite athletes, they put in so many hours
of dedicated work to ensure that they are performing to the best of their ability.
So they follow rigorous training plans,
they have the best coaches, they use the best sporting equipment.
They follow, you know, really, really strict diets
to make sure that everything they've got going for
them is going to help them perform to the best of their ability.
So because of all this, the only thing really left
to ensure or to give them the edge comes down to their psychology
and it comes down to how they're able to deal with the pressure of competition.
So competition being a form of stress, those athletes that can harness
that stress,
those responses that they experience during the competition and use it
to their advantage, are going to do better than those that don't necessarily.
And if we're thinking about elite sport, often it can come down
to tenths of a second the difference between a gold and a silver medal.
So if we can help athletes harness that stress
to give them that tiny extra edge, it's likely to make the difference
and to help them be more successful in their sport.
Okay, so
vijaypall says, "What's the right balance of stress?
How much should I be feeling and how strongly should I be feeling stressed?
Thanks."
The key thing that we need to do when we're wanting to harness that stress
and use it in a positive way is think about for us
what sort of levels of stress are best for us.
Do we need to feel a little bit more pumped up, a little bit more adrenaline?
If we think about sport, the different types of sport, things
like dart throwing and golf putting, those athletes tend to feel a little bit
elevations of stress, but not as much as maybe power lifters or boxers.
And these guys tend to pump themselves up even more.
So thinking about what it is that we're doing can really help us
identify the elevations of stress that will be best for us.
And also as an individual trying to work out what sort of level
helps us get into the right frame of mind to feel prepared
without feeling too overwhelmed.
But I'll say most importantly, it's about reminding ourselves
that any stress we experience is a good thing.
It's our bodies way of preparing us to make sure that we are switched on,
that we are focused, and that we are ready to perform to the best of our ability.
And as long as we can do that, often what we find
is that any stress we experience can be a more positive thing.
Okay, that's all the questions for today.
I found that really enjoyable and I hope that you found
it really useful and informative.
And importantly,
remember that when you're feeling stressed in the future, remind yourself
that that's your body's way of telling you it's getting ready to perform.
So make sure you use that stress to enhance your performance.
And remember to go to our website for more game changing research.