The Importance Of Emotions In Sports

Emotions and their principals are a vital part of sports and the concentration of substantial investigation in athletics. When a person is feeling a certain emotion, it is all caused by chemicals in the brain. (Rathschlag, Memmert 197-210). When a person is angry or frustrated, they are experiencing their own brain allowing them to open up to that certain emotion. It is all in the person’s hands as far as attitude and mentality goes. “Many athletes get extremely emotional or mentally stressed during their sport due to the weather, the opponent, and the endurance needed to pull through." “Mental conditioning is something that is often used to psych athletes up, block negativity, and show visualization” According to Reardon, after a match, athletes simply do not blame their loss on their lack of endurance, they complain that they were not mentally prepared. (Reardon 2003) Attitude is a huge contributor to performance during play time. When an athlete loses their mental edge, everything goes downhill. It is clear that the level to which stimuli in mental rotation tasks can be represented as aids to the mental rotation development. However, traditionally athletics focused on physical aspects rather than emotional. Athletes often feel pressure from sports administrators and fans, to be physically fit and competitive. Because of the recent advances in sports research, today'ss athletes have more recourses to target mental toughness rather than physical toughness in their sport.

Athletes today frequently take advantage of mental training programs. Each athletes preparation must include a full integration of the psychological aspect in order to accomplish maximum achievement,” (Blumenstein 116). Some have implied that mental train...

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...d because of the stress relief and muscle relaxation.” (Goldburg). When playing solo and having no one to talk to for advice, it is all up to the athlete. Every thought that enters their mind is up to them to control. “When an athlete has a negative attitude, certain muscles tighten up and cause a mis-hit or unforced error.” (Goldburg). Many people have these spurs and are unable to control it because they do not know the proper way to handle the situation. Those people that are able to control these emotions have undergone series of breathing techniques and relaxation exercises. Having mental breakdowns are more likely to destroy an athlete during play rather than physical loss of breath or endurance. When these spurs occur, an individual's image of them self is destroyed. When an athlete does not maintain positive imagery of themselves, play begins to go downhill.