Georgie-May Walker
Today, athletes and superheroes are alike.
Whether it is Superman saving the city from Lex Luthor or Michael Jordan making the game-winning shot – the community is thankful for their hard work.
Athletes are real-life superheroes; people adore them, and often, their ideologies are entirely affected by their favourite player’s performance.
Everyone who surrounds themselves worships and wants to be just like the superstar athlete they so desperately look up to – just how superheroes are perceived.
Do you remember how Chicago Bulls fans reacted when Michael Jordan missed a goal? It was like they also missed the shot with their disappointment beyond clear.
Sport provides a sense of belonging for communities and brings them closer together, just like superheroes. Except there is no perceived villain in sport, just another team with the same goal to win.
Society absorbs wins and gains the same high as the athlete, but we equally absorb a loss, perceiving it as a failure.
Many athletes thrive on the competitiveness of their game, and they want to impress everyone around them – after all, they are their community’s superhero.
But how does an athlete react when sport becomes their kryptonite?
It is easy to assume all athletes thrive from competition.
But for some, instead of being excited to learn new techniques, driving to practice becomes a daunting task.
From competition to curse
A community wants the athlete to succeed and win, but the very thought of playing a match brings a spiralling sensation of overwhelming thoughts.
Performance anxiety is a diagnosis given to athletes whose anxiety worsens when preparing for a high-stakes match. The anxiety can manifest in physical forms, like sweaty palms or spiral into other mental disorders like depression or disordered eating.
The conversation about sports-induced anxiety often occurs after the disorder has damaged the athlete’s mind.
Leilanie Pakoa, a sport and exercise psychology registrar, said many people see sport as a protective environment, and anxiety can cause a shift in these perceptions.
“I really find sport to be such a powerful vehicle for mental health wellbeing – it’s such a big protective factor,” Ms Pakoa said.
The Yerks-Dodson Law by Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson describes how stress is helpful in performance as it causes an increase in physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point before a person’s efforts start deteriorating.
Ms Pakoa explained the law in detail, describing stress as good if managed.
“We need anxiety, (mental) arousal, and stress to push us to peak performance. … The issue is when it goes too far.”
Leilanie Pakoa, a sport and exercise psychology registrar
“And that’s what the sort of law diagram kind of explains, is anxiety is functional to a point because it helps us get excited or have pain.”
She said mental arousal is necessary to help people want to win and achieve their goals.
“The issue is when it goes too far,” she said.
“So, when anxiety gets all-consuming, we don’t know how to regulate ourselves.
“We become almost to the pressures that are being placed on us – either from ourselves or our coaches, parents or managers.
“So, I think it’s important that we don’t want to sort of be like we’ve got to get rid of anxiety altogether because, to a point, it’s functional and hopeful because it gets us going.
“The issue comes when it goes too far, and we’re like, ‘holy sh-t – how do I control these thoughts and feelings that are happening in this big moment?’”
Ms Pakoa said it’s important to mention, especially to younger athletes and kids, that negative thoughts are okay and normal.
She said we need to learn to accept these ‘negative thoughts’ as it’s okay to have them depending on how it’s managed, as ‘the mind can come up with some crazy thoughts’.
“We don’t necessarily want to eliminate them altogether because they’re inevitable.
“Part of living is that we will experience anxiety, sadness, loss, grief.
Performance anxiety
Ms Pakoa said diagnosing performance anxiety is unnecessary and can sometimes minimise an athlete’s perceived abilities. However, there is a difference between generalised anxiety and performance anxiety or sports-induced anxiety.
“Generalised anxiety would be having lots of worried thoughts around a bunch of things, like anything happening in the day or your world… (and your) mind gets stuck and stays there a bit too long.
“Whereas performance anxiety is very specific to an event, competition, or performance, where you are being criticised, or your performance is up for critique.
“Many people experience anxiety, and I think we have this perception that it’s different to experience anxiety and have an anxiety disorder.
“If we have an anxiety disorder, then that means we’re at a level where it’s dysfunctional to our daily living.
“So, anything with a disorder label means anxiety so high that we can’t go to work, we can’t go out to events, and we can’t socialise with our friends.
“Competition anxiety would again be case by case, and I wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to diagnose.
“I think the whole process of diagnosing can be a bit limiting and… It’s okay that we experience performance anxiety.
“We don’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this disorder, so I can’t do anything about it’.
“Instead, go like, okay, we experience performance anxiety, and that’s very normal, and that is very okay – If anything, it’s needed.
“We need that performance anxiety to get us going and ready to perform.
“I feel like my work (as a sports psychologist) must be more on, okay, we’re experiencing that, let me figure out when that happens, how it happens, and then let’s figure out how we manage it.
“Because if we get stuck on the label too much, then we’re not focused on the solutions or the strategies we could try and practice.”
Compounding impacts
Many athletes with a diagnosed anxiety disorder are known to suffer other mental health problems.
“The way it would affect someone if they were to experience a lot of performance anxiety, the effect might be they would maybe withdraw or avoid sport,” she said.
“So, they might stop playing sport even if they love it and it’s enjoyable.
“And then (anxious athletes think) I’m in these big games, and I’m getting selected – now there’s pressure, and now I’m getting anxious about my performance.
“All the good, positive protective (sporting environment is gone) because of that performance anxiety.”
Ms Pakoa is currently studying the links between anxiety and eating behaviours in athletes.
“I’m about to do a big course on eating disorders because it is quite common in sports.
“And what’s interesting is, like the, the flow on effect from anxiety can be disordered eating because it’s like eating is one of the things we can control.
“You know, if we’re feeling very out of control and anxious and don’t know what we can hold on to, it makes sense that we could turn to food and potentially restricting because that makes us feel comfort.
“But then (the anxiety) just exacerbates a longer-term issue and potentially unhelpful or unhealthy relationship with food, which stems from sport, especially in women’s sport.”
Grace’s story
Grace Hamilton, an ex-semi-professional netballer with the Carina Leagues Club Tigers, said her anxiety spiralled out of control at sport, leading her to suffer from disordered eating.
“I kind of just thought it (anxiety) was something everyone struggled with,” Hamilton said.
“My anxiety was diagnosed at the same time as depression, and it (also) started manifesting itself in eating disorders.
“It felt at the time that I couldn’t control the anxiety, but I could control how I looked or reported on the fitness scales with testing.
“So, I allowed the anxiety to take over that aspect of my life (eating) because it made me feel like I had control.
“Ultimately, it made things ten times worse and gave me one hundred more things to worry about daily.
“And that took months to get used to because that’s something you can be physically recovered, but then you can’t ever be mentally recovered from something like that – it’ll always be part of your identity.
“So, I would consider myself a perfectionist, which can be good or bad.
“And in sports, especially in my semi-professional career, the anxiety started to manifest into bigger problems with depression and eating disorders.”
She explained she had suffered anxiety before sport, but the symptoms during her netball career were overwhelming.
“I was feeling tingling in the hands and feet, and it was just the worst feeling I ever felt, and I had no idea what was going on.
“And in that competitive environment, where everyone was trying to be the best, it was no longer just about me being the best against myself – I had to try and better everyone else.
“Then, when I couldn’t be the best at everything compared to everyone, I took different means of doing it, which made the anxiety manifest more dangerously.
“And it destroyed my love of the sport.
“And all of 2021 (at the height of my career), I remember just hating (netball) something that I loved for years and years because all I could think about was how I would not know how to perform in front of everyone else, even though they had the belief in me.
“I never thought I was good enough, and it just consumed my entire experience.”
Hamilton said after she struggled with anxiety at the end of 2021, she tried getting back into the semi-professional netball environment but hurt her ankle and was out again.
“I didn’t go back the year after (2021). I decided that I needed a break.
“I think it’s (anxiety) stopping me from trying to go back because now that I’ve gotten out of that (semi-professional) environment and I’m still dealing with the anxiety, it’s not something that can go away with medication no matter how well you feel you are.
“When I think about that period of my life, I miss being in that (semi-professional) environment, but I don’t miss being so stressed and anxious three, four times a week every time on my way to training, every time on my way to a game where people would be watching me.
“It almost felt like all eyes were on me when really everyone’s eyes were spread across ten (other players) at a time.
“It’s almost impossible for me to feel like I can go back just because once you know what it feels like, you don’t want to feel that again.”
Managing the athlete mindset
Ms Pakoa says anxiety can make it difficult for athletes to talk about it, even with those who care for them.
“Which makes the problem even worse – It just somewhat exacerbates,” Ms Pakoa said.
She said she has noticed the “athlete mindset” affecting players during other aspects of their lives, like school or university performance.
“It’s a similar pattern where there is a lot of pressure on performance for those big exams.
“And if we have that tendency in sport, it makes sense that it would then transfer to school and work.
“They talk about the athlete mindset… that’s someone who’s quite performance-driven, goal-driven, and you know, that’s a function of our society, school, parents or even ourselves.
“The same sort of mindset when it came to assignments or work tasks or getting a job in the career you want.
“That kind of athlete mindset affects different aspects of life, not just sports.”
Hamilton described how the anxiety manifested itself before a netball match.
“There are times where the lead up to it is gut-wrenching in terms of how sick you can feel,” Hamilton said.
“But once you get over it, it’s almost like the anxiety is replaced with self-criticism. It manifests itself into that.
“So, if I were anxious and didn’t perform in that game, I would psych myself out, then take that and bash myself internally.
“And there are times where I have no anxiety going onto a court, and those times are a blessing.
“But you just never know until the day, until the moment of, and that’s the hardest part of dealing with anxiety when you don’t know how bad it will be.
Seeking help is key
“It took me – if you go from when I had my first panic episodes to when I went to a doctor and asked for help – it would be about six years.
“I thought I’d be cured (by the doctor) straight away.
“So I went to a doctor, I’ve been to three different psychologists… my parents went down many different avenues to try and get help.
“They searched every aspect of helping people with anxiety, helping people with depression, eating disorders, trying to find something that worked.
“And that took a toll on my parents.”
Hamilton said she didn’t return to the same level of netball after her anxiety spiralled from sport into other aspects of her life.
“I can leave semi-professional netball in the past and just appreciate that I was able to get to do it.
“I don’t think I’ll ever give up sport, and I think it’ll always be something I do.
“(I can’t have those) anxiety tendencies breaking through and ruining it for me again.”
For athletes who suffer from “overactive, anxious” minds, Ms Pakoa suggested a pre-competition routine.
She said addressing the anxious emotions rather than suppressing them is essential.
“I’m going to feel anxious for this game, but that’s okay. I’m going to do this,” Ms Pakoa said.
“I’m going to focus on my job. I will focus on tying my shoelaces, eating my favourite lollies, and having all my water ready so that we’re not sitting idle for our brains to go in a million different directions.
“And then also a big one for a sport is reminding yourself of your role, like, what’s my job?
“My job is to go out there and be the best defender I can be and, you know, look for intercepts and keep my feet fast.
“So rather than focusing on all of the emotions and not what everyone’s thinking or saying or doing, I’m just going to focus on my job and doing the best I can on that day or in that game.”
If you need help, talk to a GP or health professional, or contact Beyond Blue (1300 22 46 36), Headspace (1800 650 850) or in life-threatening situations, dial 000.