This may seem to be a strange question, surely its obvious what sport psychology is? Not so, as even though it has been around for a few decades now, it is still massively misunderstood and may be even cause fear in some people. As normally happens when people fear or fail to understand something, they […]
Take a trip to any food retail store, find yourself in the health section and you are immediately struck by the vast quantity of available supplements all posing various remedies. Concerning the active person wishing to aid their recovery from exercise to enable them to work-out without the feeling of muscle weakness, lethargy, delayed onset […]
Having a strong psychological foundation will allow athletes to achieve the greatest execution of a skill can during a performance (Gucciardi et al, 2008). Ŝukys and Jansoniene (2012) reported, when the competition level of an individual increases the pressure to succeed intensifies, hence the importance of a solid mental core. This pressure of being successful […]
With over a billion Facebook users, more than 9,000 Tweets posted per second and an average of 55 million photos uploaded via Instagram everyday, it’s hard to escape the weird and wonderful world of the ever growing social networking sites. Hours can be wasted scrolling through the hundreds of friends status updates and latest celebrity […]
The development of depression during retirement from professional sport has been highlighted by many athletes and most recently by swimming legend Ian Thorpe. James Cracknell has spoken about his tunnel vision of sport performance and subsequent inability to broaden his horizons in retirement. Alternatively sports stars have often quit a major competition or retired from […]
Whether it is an individual trying to make a stride in their daily workout regime, or someone who is starting a swimming class in an effort to train for a triathlon or even an organization trying to make a sales quote, we are all faced with daily psychological limits in our endeavours. A psychological limit […]
What is perfectionism? Perfectionism has been identified as an innate characteristic of personality (Stoeber et al. 2007), in a sporting context it is characterised by the setting of exceptionally high standards, a complete striving for flawlessness and the overly critical evaluation of one’s performance (Frost et al. 1990; Flett & Hewitt 2005). Perfectionism is widely […]
The mind is a powerful tool and can easily make or break an athlete. Confidence in ones abilities is integral to success. Positive outcomes in a training environment will help reinforce the athlete’s self-efficacy when entering the competitive arena, but when this confidence fades and self-belief diminishes it can have detrimental effects on all aspects […]
Military personnel face extreme levels of stress that impact not only their performance but also their readiness and personal relationships (Mastroianni, Mabry, Benedek, & Ursano, 2008). Prominent stressors include sleep deprivation, physical fatigue, prolonged separation from family and friends, and the ongoing threat of injury or death. Up to 70% of US soldiers are exposed […]
The question as to why humans require sleep is largely unanswered. Most research focusing around sleep has looked at specifically how humans sleep and it has been found that sleep provides us with a number of physical and psychological functions. There are three main functions which sleep provides us with. The first is a somatic […]