Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response to a present threat, whereas anxiety is the anticipation of a future one. It is often accompanied by nervous behavior such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination.
Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. It involves activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in the brain, which mediates wakefulness, the autonomic nervous system, and the endocrine system, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and a condition of sensory alertness, desire, mobility, and reactivity.
The Yerkes–Dodson law is an empirical relationship between arousal and performance, originally developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases. The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal. The original paper was only referenced ten times over the next half century, yet in four of the citing articles, these findings were described as a psychological "law".
In sports, choking is the failure of a person, or persons, to act or behave as anticipated or expected. This can occur in a game or tournament that they are strongly favoured to win, or in an instance where they have a large lead that they squander in the late stages of the event. It can also refer to repeated failures in the same event, or simply imply an unexpected failure when the event is more important than usual.
Acute stress reaction (ASR), also known as psychological shock, mental shock, or simply shock, as well as acute stress disorder (ASD), is a psychological response to a terrifying, traumatic, or surprising experience. The reactions may include but are not limited to intrusive thoughts, or dissociation, and reactivity symptoms such as avoidance or hyperarousal. It may be exhibited for days or weeks after the traumatic event. If the condition is not correctly addressed, it may develop into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The two-factor theory of emotion posits when an emotion is felt, a physiological arousal occurs and the person uses the immediate environment to search for emotional cues to label the physiological arousal.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a form of alternative therapy aimed at treating trauma and stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The primary goal of SE is to modify the trauma-related stress response through bottom-up processing. The client's attention is directed toward internal sensations rather than cognitive or emotional experiences. Peter A. Levine developed the method.
Affect, in psychology, is the underlying experience of feeling, emotion, attachment, or mood. It encompasses a wide range of emotional states and can be positive or negative. Affect is a fundamental aspect of human experience and plays a central role in many psychological theories and studies. It can be understood as a combination of three components: emotion, mood, and affectivity. In psychology, the term affect is often used interchangeably with several related terms and concepts, though each term may have slightly different nuances. These terms encompass: emotion, feeling, mood, emotional state, sentiment, affective state, emotional response, affective reactivity, disposition. Researchers and psychologists may employ specific terms based on their focus and the context of their work.
Social facilitation is a social phenomenon in which being in the presence of others improves individual task performance. That is, people do better on tasks when they are with other people rather than when they are doing the task alone. Situations that elicit social facilitation include coaction, performing for an audience, and appears to depend on task complexity.
Clouding of consciousness, also called brain fog or mental fog, occurs when a person is slightly less wakeful or aware than normal. They are less aware of time and their surroundings, and find it difficult to pay attention. People describe this subjective sensation as their mind being "foggy".
Somatization is the generation of somatic symptoms due to psychological distress, often coinciding with a tendency to seek medical help for them. The term somatization was introduced by Wilhelm Stekel in 1924.
Test anxiety is a combination of physiological over-arousal, tension and somatic symptoms, along with worry, dread, fear of failure, and catastrophizing, that occur before or during test situations. It is a psychological condition in which people experience extreme stress, anxiety, and discomfort during and/or before taking a test. This anxiety creates significant barriers to learning and performance. Research suggests that high levels of emotional distress have a direct correlation to reduced academic performance and higher overall student drop-out rates. Test anxiety can have broader consequences, negatively affecting a student's social, emotional and behavioural development, as well as their feelings about themselves and school.
The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is a formative assessment and rating scale of anxiety. This self-report inventory, or 21-item questionnaire uses a scale ; the BAI is an ordinal scale; more specifically, a Likert scale that measures the scale quality of magnitude of anxiety.
Sport psychology is defined as the study of the psychological basis, processes, and effects of sport. Sport is defined as any physical activity where the individuals engage for competition and health. Sport psychology is recognized as an interdisciplinary science that draws on knowledge from many related fields including biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology and psychology. It involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological, social, and physical factors. Sport psychologists teach cognitive and behavioral strategies to athletes in order to improve their experience and performance in sports.
Somatic symptom disorder, also known as somatoform disorder or somatization disorder, is defined by one or more chronic physical symptoms that coincide with excessive and maladaptive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors connected to those symptoms. The symptoms are not deliberately produced or feigned, and they may or may not coexist with a known medical ailment.
The health issues of athletics concern their physical and mental well-being in organized sport. If athletes are physically and mentally underdeveloped, they are susceptible to mental or physical problems. Efforts to improve performance can lead to harm from overtraining, adopting eating habits that damage them physically or psychologically, like using steroids or supplements.
Sports hypnosis refers to the use of hypnotherapy with athletes in order to enhance sporting performance. Hypnosis in sports has therapeutic and performance-enhancing functions. The mental state of athletes during training and competition is said to impact performance. Hypnosis is a form of mental training and can therefore contribute to enhancing athletic execution. Sports hypnosis is used by athletes, coaches and psychologists.
Clutch performance in sports refers to the phenomenon where athletes excel under pressure, commonly known as "in the clutch". These moments typically occur later in the game, and involve plays that significantly impact the outcome of the game. Athletes are required to summon strength, concentration and any other qualities necessary to succeed and perform well. This phenomenon is observed in many sports including basketball, hockey, football, and esports, but the phrase is most commonly used in baseball.
Functional somatic syndrome (FSS) is any of a group of chronic diagnoses with no identifiable organic cause. This term was coined by Hemanth Samkumar. It encompasses disorders such as fibromyalgia, chronic widespread pain, temporomandibular disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, lower back pain, tension headache, atypical face pain, non-cardiac chest pain, insomnia, palpitation, dyspepsia and dizziness. General overlap exists between this term, somatization and somatoform. The status of ME/CFS as a functional somatic syndrome is contested. Although the aetiology remains unclear, there are consistent findings of biological abnormalities, and major health bodies such as the NAM, WHO, and NIH, classify it as an organic disease.
Trauma-sensitive yoga is yoga as exercise, adapted from 2002 onwards for work with individuals affected by psychological trauma. Its goal is to help trauma survivors to develop a greater sense of mind-body connection, to ease their physiological experiences of trauma, to gain a greater sense of ownership over their bodies, and to augment their overall well-being. However, a 2019 systematic review found that the studies to date were not sufficiently robustly designed to provide strong evidence of yoga's effectiveness as a therapy; it called for further research.
