Stress Management

Importance and Implementation

Coaching can be stressful. And while we know that viewing stress as enhancing is an important framework to utilize stress for performance, we also know that stress without recovery hinders performance. Stress + Recovery = Growth. So how can you recover and manage stress to be at your best for your athletes? And why do you even need to?

In this week’s 3 Points, I’ll discuss stress management and why it’s important, and tips for implementing stress management into your schedule.

1. A study published in the Journal of Sport Sciences sought to better understand coach stress in elite sport environments. After analyzing interviews with 13 different elite athletes across 5 sports, the researchers came upon some interesting findings:

• Athletes perceived coaches to be performers in their own right and believe stress impacts their performance as well.

• In line with previous studies, athletes were able to clearly identify when their coaches were experiencing stress.

• Athletes who perceived their coach to be experiencing stress viewed their coach as less effective and less competent.

2. Avoiding stress is not only impossible, it would stunt growth and development. However, awareness of one’s stress and skills and practices to manage stress may go a long way in enhancing coaching performance.

The researchers concluded, “coaches should be aware of the signals that they transmit when stressed, how they perceive athletes to be affected when they are stressed, and how effective they perceive themselves to be when experiencing stress.”

3. Some highlighted evidence-based practices to help manage stress from the American Psychological Association:

• Problem-solve: If you can find ways to remove unwanted stress, don’t overthink it!

• Sleep, fuel, and exercise: The foundation of performance and helpful at managing stress.

• Practice mindful breathing - One of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce stress

• Social Support - Can increase improve resilience to stress.

This list is not exhaustive, and I’d encourage you to click the link from APA to learn more. I often end the newsletter with a list of actionable items. My hope is that you try different practices and skills and find what works for you. I also know that implementing new habits and practices can be difficult. So while this feels long overdue, I’d like to periodically introduce ideas for implementation. This week’s implementation strategy is called habit stacking and has been popularized by NYT best-selling author of Atomic Habits, James Clear.

Habit stacking is the practice of using our existing habits to build new habits. Clear explains, “your brain builds a strong network of neurons to support your current behaviors. The more you do something, the stronger and more efficient the connection becomes.” By connecting new habits to our existing habits, we can tap into these strong neural connections to create habits more efficiently. So if you want to practice mindful breathing daily, it would make sense to add it to a habit you may already have in place, like morning coffee or after exercise.