Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
reflections on stress management
Relevance Of Sport Psychology
Stress: Its meaning, impact and sources
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: reflections on stress management
Actors, athletes and students all have something in common. They all perform their tasks with varying stress levels. What is this stress that we all talk about? Stress can be defined as a physical, mental or emotional demand, which tends to disturb the homeostasis of the body. Used rather loosely, the term may relate to any kind of pressure, be it due to one's job, schoolwork, marriage, illness or death of a loved one. The common denominator in all of these is change. Loss of familiarity breeds this anxiety with any change being viewed as a "threat".
The issue of anxiety is an important aspect of performance. Whether it is during the tense moments of a championship game or amidst that dreaded History exam, anxiety affects our performance via changes in the body, which can be identified by certain indicators. One misconception though with performing under pressure is that stress always has a negative connotation. Many times, "the stress of competition may cause a negative anxiety in one performer but positive excitement in another" (3). That is why one frequently hears how elite players' thrive under pressure, when most others would crumble.
PHYSIOLOGY OF STRESS
Stress is an integral part of our lives. "It is a natural byproduct of all our activities" (4). Life is a dynamic process and thus forever changing and stressful. Our body responds to acute stress by a liberation of chemicals. This is known as the fight-or-flight response of the body, which is mediated by adrenaline and other stress hormones, and is comprised of such physiologic changes as increased heart rate and blood pressure, faster breathing, muscle tension, dilated pupils, dry mouth and increased blood sugar. In other words, stress is the state of inc...
... middle of paper ...
... in Sport. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1990.
4)Herbert, John. "Stress, the Brain and Mental Illness." BMJ. 30 August 1997: 530-535.
5) Peforming Your Best When it Counts the Most , by Kyle Kepler
http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/sports/perform.html
6) Choking in Big Competitions , by Kaori Araki
http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/sports/choking.html
7) The Online Journal of Sports Psychology ,
http://www.athleticinsight.com/
8) The Mental Edge , by Sandy Dupcak
http://users.rcn.com/dupcak/mntledge.html
9) Competitive Anxiety , by Brian Mackenzie
http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/companx.htm
10)Nelson, Charles. The Effects of Early Adversity on Neurobehavioral Development. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.
11)Neufeld, Richard. Advances in the Investigation of Psychological Stress. New York:Wiley and Sons, 1989.
What were the Japanese internment camps some might ask. The camps were caused by the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1942 by Japan. President Roosevelt signed a form to send all the Japanese into internment camps.(1) All the Japanese living along the coast were moved to other states like California, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona. The camps were located away from Japan and isolated so if a spy tried to communicate, word wouldn't get out. The camps were unfair to the Japanese but the US were trying to be cautious. Many even more than 66% or 2/3 of the Japanese-Americans sent to the internment camps in April of 1942 were born in the United States and many had never been to Japan. Their only crime was that they had Japanese ancestors and they were suspected of being spies to their homeland of Japan. Japanese-American World War I veterans that served for the United States were also sent to the internment camps.(2)
On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II (Prange et al., 1981: p.174). On February 19, 1942, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War and Military Commanders to prescribe areas of land as excludable military zones (Roosevelt, 1942). Effectively, this order sanctioned the identification, deportation, and internment of innocent Japanese Americans in War Relocation Camps across the western half of the United States. During the spring and summer of 1942, it is estimated that almost 120,000 Japanese Americans were relocated from their homes along the West Coast and in Hawaii and detained in U.S. government-run concentration camps (Daniels, 2004: p.3). Approximately two-thirds of these men and women were either nisei—second generation Japanese—or sansei—third generation—Japanese Americans, the other third were issei—first generation—Japanese immigrants living in the United States at the time. While issei generation Japanese people were born in Japan and were not eligible for United States citizenship, members of the nisei and sanei generations were born in the United States, and therefore, were legal American citizens. Regardless of this distinction in citizenship, however, American powers perceived all of these men and women to be an imposing threat to the security of the United States.
Evidently, during the 1870-1900 period, farmers expressed drastic discontent in which their attitudes and actions had a major impact on national politics. First and foremost, farmers began to feel that their lives were threatened by competition with railroads, monopolies, trusts, currency circulation shortage, and the desire for Mother Nature to destroy their crops. The majority of the people of America were slaves, and monopoly was the master (Document C). Monopolies were dictating the way the agricultural industry functioned as a whole. Additionally, the deflation of prices was particularly crucial, because it put the farmers in a high state of debt. Furthermore, competition was another major contributing factor liable for the farmers’ dissatisfaction.
The Japanese-American Internment experience lasted from 1942-1946. Approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans were affected. Many lost their property, health, sense of identity, and also patriotism during the experience. The internment brings into question the constitutionality of “military necessity” and also paved the way for the later Civil Rights Movement.
The period between 1880 and 1900 was a boom time for American Politics. The country was finally free of the threat of war, and many of its citizens were living comfortably. However, as these two decades went by, the American farmer found it harder and harder to live comfortably. Crops such as cotton and wheat, once the sustenance of the agriculture industry, were selling at prices so low that it was nearly impossible for farmers to make a profit off them. Furthermore, improvement in transportation allowed foreign competition to materialize, making it harder for American farmers to dispose of surplus crop. Mother Nature was also showing no mercy with grasshoppers, floods, and major droughts that led to a downward spiral of business that devastated many of the nation’s farmers. As a result of the agricultural depression, numerous farms groups, most notably the Populist Party, arose to fight what the farmers saw as the reasons for the decline in agriculture. During the final twenty years of the nineteenth century, many farmers in the United States saw monopolies and trusts, railroads, and money shortages and the loss in value of silver as threats to their way of life, all of which could be recognized as valid complaints.
The federal government ruled most of the reasons behind Japanese internment camps. Further than two-thirds of the Japanese who were sentenced to internment camps in the spring of 1942 were in fact United States citizens. The internment camps were the centerpiece for legal confines of minorities. Most camps were exceedingly overcrowded and with deprived living conditions. The conditions included “tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind.” Unfortunately, coal was very hard to come by for the internees, so most would only have the blankets that were rationed out to sleep on. As for food, the allotment was about 48 cents per internee. This food was served in a mess hall of about 250 people and by other internees. Leadership positions within the camp were only given to the American-born Japanese, or Nisei. Eventually, the government decided that...
In 1942 Roosevelt signed the Executive order 9066 which forced all Japanese-Americans to evacuate the West Coast. They were forced out no matter their loyalty or their citizenship. These Japanese-Americans were sent to Internment camps which were located in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. There were ten camps all-together and 120,000 people filled them (2009). The immigrants were deprived of their traditional respect when their children who were American-born were indorsed authority positions within the camps. In 1945 Japanese-American citizens with undisrupted loyalty were allowed to return to the West Coast, but not until 1946 was the last camp closed.
Because of this order, 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the U.S. were removed from their homes and placed in internment camps. The United States justified their action by claiming that there was a danger of those of Japanese descent spying for the Japanese. However more than two-thirds, approximately 62 percent, of those interned were American citizens and half of them were children. None had ever shown disloyalty to the nation. In some cases family members were separated and put in different camps. Only ten people were convicted of spying for the Japanese during the entire war and they were all white people. None of them were Japanese. Because of the wartime hysteria and prejudice, many Japanese people were forced to leave their homes and go to the intern camps.
Society throughout time has always played a large role in humans’ day-to-day lives regarding everything from stylistic choices to the way they think and act. In the book Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Doeskyesjy, Sonja the daughter of Marmaladov and Katerina petrovina engages in in prostitution in order to support her family. Sonja however is no less of a person due to her poor economic standpoint, still having a faith base her reason is pure and her prostitution is to entirely support her family. Sonja as a person showed such selflessness that she puts herself before other regardless of what’s at stake. In her case like so many other young women Prostitution was a last resort in order to provide for her family. This being said society itself more or less forces the girls into prostitution and then proceeds to place a stigma on the soiled doves for committing impure acts. In crime and punishment the Russian society forced Sonja into prostitution in order to maintain societal regularities like so many girls before her throughout history.
Nevertheless, Japanese were resented and disliked by whites. Due to pressure from state leaders near the west coast, President Roosevelt, on February 19, 1942, signed Executive Order 9066. This resulted in the which resulted in the violent imprisonment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry. When the government gave its internment order, whites rounded up, imprisoned, and exiled their Japanese neighbors. In 1942, 110,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast of the United States were relocated to ten internment camps. More than two thirds of those sent to internment camps, under the Executive Order, had never shown disloyalty and were also citizens of the United States. In April 1942, the War Relocation Authority was created to control the assembly centers, relocation centers, and internment camps, and oversee the relocation of Japanese-Americans. It took another forty years for the US government to recognize the violations of this population's constitutional rights.
Robson, David. "Life in Camps." The Internment of Japanese Americans. San Diego, CA: Reference Point, 2014. N. pag. Print.
Stress means different things to different people and stress effects people in different ways. Some people think stress is something that happens to them such as an injury or a promotion and others think that stress is what happens to our mind, body and behaviors in response to an event. While stress does involve events and how one responds to them these are not the critical factors, but our thoughts about the situation in which we are involved are the critical factors. Essentially, stress exists whenever homeostasis is disturbed or cannot be maintained (Stress and the Social System Course Guide, 2013). Homeostasis refers to the body's ability to keep the internal chemical and physical environments constant. As your body begins to react to stress several changes occur. These changes include increased heart rate, blood pressure and secretion of stimulatory hormones. Ones body prepares itself in stressful situations to either stand ground and fight or to flee from the situation. Walter Cannon called this stressful reaction the fight-or-flight response (Greenberg, 2012).
Image being forced out of your home by the government, and then being involuntary to live in horrible conditions in the like the internment camps! The Japanese Americans were treated very inhumanely in the internment camps during WWII in many ways. The Americans government played a major role during this time, and the government was the ones who placed the Japanese Americans in the internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The American government also gave the Japanese Americans not even a weeks notice to gather, and only could keep what they could carry with them. In the internment camps that the American government the Japanese Americans were not treated equally like they originally hoped they would by coming to America. Lastly, the way the internment camps was not the best place to be living in, and abuse despite being rare it still happened. The Japanese Americans were being treated savagely in the internment camps during World War II.
What if sports and psychology had direct correlation to each other? The Wall Street Journal composed an article by Robert J. called, “Mind Games: Weekend Athletes Seek Help” which pertains to a new form of psychology called sports psychology, and how it could be beneficial to everyone not just world class athletes. Robert interviews non- professional athletes as well as people that exercise for leisure asking why they haven’t considered going to a sports psychologist their response was, “Insurers say counseling to improve athletic performance is the psychological equivalent of cosmetic surgery and the won’t pay for it. (2)” Due to not having the income or the status like Lebron James whom is an infamous two time NBA championship recipient, or the world renowned Olympian Michael Phelps who retires with 18 gold medals. These people cannot successfully fund a health benefit as costly as this or even be recommended for these type of therapeutic services. With that being said sports psychology should be available for all athletes instead of being limited to professional competitors because this form of psychology is altered specifically for the athlete this practice can decrease the statistics of mental health problems, keep athletes on one accord to perform better in there every day demands of life, smoothen the transitions between professional athleticism, and retirement as well as provide promising athletes coping mechanisms to help them adjust in early stages of their careers.
First, stress is defined as an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that people experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening to their well being (Patel, 14). Stress is a universal feeling to everyone but the word stress means different things to different people. Some people define stress as events or situations that cause them to feel tension, pressure or negative emotions such as anxiety or anger (Patel, 15). Other people may view stress as a process involving a person’s interpretation and response to a threatening event. In any case, stress has many facets of how one perceives and responds to the certain predicament that is ailing them.