Impact of anxiety on performance

Anxiety can manifest itself cognitively or somatically:

cognitive anxiety refers to the negative thoughts and doubts someone may experience
somatic anxiety relates to the symptoms brought on by high pressure moments

Anxiety can be divided into two types: cognitive (negative thoughts and worries) and somatic (physical symptoms like muscle tension, sweaty palms and shakes)

Cognitive anxiety

Think about when you have sat an exam. In preparation, you have studied, covering everything on your revision checklist. However, as you stand outside the assembly hall about to go in, several of the following negative thoughts come into your head:

I cannot remember anything. I hope this question does not come up because I am terrible at that. I just know I will fail this.

These are examples of cognitive anxiety. They are stimulated by worries of negative outcomes. Athletes and sports competitors are no different. Even the elite! 

Rafael Nadal playing tennis — Figure caption,
Even elite athletes, like Rafael Nadal, deal with anxiety that may impact their performance.

Rafael Nadal suffered from anxiety in 2015 after undergoing back surgery and doubting whether he could return to top level tennis.

As a result he had one of his worst ATP seasons, being knocked out of Wimbledon in the second round, and the US Open in the third round.

This anxiety contributed to him losing to Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the French Open quarter finals, and going from two sets up to being beaten by Fabio Fognini in the US Open 3-2.

Question

Using the 3-step process, how might anxiety have a negative impact on performance in a final in tennis?

�鶹Լ��

Impact of mental factors on performanceImpact of anxiety on performance