Why Does Anxiety Increase In Student Athletes?

A student athlete faces adversity on a daily basis. With facing adversity a lot of times comes stress, and with stress anxiety can start to become a huge factor on how the student athlete performs. When speaking of performing, that’s on and off the field tasks. Student athletes are known to have many responsibilities. A problem many student athletes face is managing all their responsibilities while not feeling overwhelmed. Once the pressure of trying to manage all the responsibilities a student athlete might have begins to weigh down on him or her, that’s when one with anxiety can start to lose the “it” factor that allows them to perform.

There are many different definitions of anxiety, but one thing that mainly all of them mention is having

On the outside the student athlete suffering from this disorder might look like they have everything going for them, but on the inside they’re a roller coaster of emotions. Leading back to responsibilities and pressure a student athlete deals with on a daily basis. In an article I read called “Why Does Anxiety Increase in Student Athletes?” it gave an analysis of the level of anxiety on student athletes in relation to normal students. In the article it talks about a lot of the things I’ve mentioned as far as the snow ball effect of stress eventually causing a student athlete to not be able to perform to the best of their ability. The article also talks about stress being brought on to a collegiate student athlete by having to compete at a higher level in order for playing time. A player making the transition from high school to college can be set up for failure if not mentally prepared. At his or her high school they might’ve been the best athlete on their team or most popular kid in school then all of a sudden they’re in college where the level of competition is a lot higher. So with the fear of possibly not being able to compete can lead to stress that triggers anxiety, and eventually leads to the inability to perform. (pages.shanti.virginia.edu) The article also talks about if this disorder goes untreated it can lead to basically a path to destruction. Some of the things it can lead to is dropping out of school, being kicked out of school, losing scholarships, and possibly suicide. (