Running on Worry: Anxiety and Athletic Performance

Written by Marie Norton

RVA Health Online recently partnered with Virginia Capital Fitness Winter Running Team to assist their athletes with anxiety and performance. Below you can read about anxiety and how it may pertain to your performance goals. 

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Your anxiety is real. You aren’t making it up. You aren’t worrying to be dramatic. You’d like the anxiety to go away. Telling friends and family about your worries only yields a sympathetic, “I think you’re making too big a deal out of it.” You may try to apply your own objective logic, but the perseveration returns. 

Performance, injury, and weight are the most common worries of the athlete. Add to it secondary anxieties: resources (time, money, social/family support) required to sustain a high-intensity sport, and the question of emotional fortitude (Can I do this? Can I endure this pain? Can I stay committed? Will I meet my goals? What if I don’t meet them?).  

The athlete’s anxiety shows up in different forms: “What if I can’t sleep the night before the race?” Or, “My knee hurts. I can’t take time off to recover.”  It's never just one thought, but a swirl of “what ifs.” 

We need some level of anxiety to thrive. It motivates us and protects us from danger. The goal is better management. But how? 

You know the old cliché of confronting one’s fears. When my clients tell me they are anxious about an event, I want them to hear every “irrational” thought they have. I want them to know all the ways they worry something could go wrong. I don’t care how silly their worries seem because they aren’t silly. Anxiety is individual and based on a person’s history and the stress they’ve experienced in the past.

Sometimes just talking about anxiety is enough; the individual can move forward with confidence. Sometimes, however, we need to become anxiety Navy SEALs. Here’s what I mean by that: 

Think of SEALs prepping for a high-stakes reconnaissance mission. They don’t wing it and hope for the best. They have an optimal plan and well-rehearsed contingencies. Some of those contingencies include worst case scenarios–someone is killed or injured. No one wants that to happen, but they have a plan if it does. They reduce anxiety by increasing control and predictability during the event. 

Many high-performance athletes worry about vomiting or losing control of their bowels before or during a race. Be a Navy SEAL about it. You might visit the starting line a day before the race so you know the layout of the course and the nearest bathroom. You might have an extra pair of underwear and a plastic bag tucked into your shorts. Not ideal, but better than having no plan. In most cases, being prepared reduces the chances of the dreaded event happening; the athlete has increased control and predictability and his/her/their stomach is more settled because of it.  

This is simplified, of course. If you are like most high-performance athletes, the thought of adding a minute in the middle of a race to use the bathroom is abhorrent. And that’s a fair point. In a counseling session we’d go a little deeper and figure out the goals of the race and a hierarchy of optimal outcomes. 

Anxiety is a paradox. It is uncomfortable so we avoid it by pushing the thoughts away or trying to rationalize them. It is human nature to avoid discomfort. The more we do that, however, the greater the anxiety grows. The trick is to get closer to it. Get curious about it. 

We are already in psychological discomfort if anxiety is impacting athletic performance. Facing anxiety ahead of time is uncomfortable, but ultimately decreases long-term discomfort, and improves functioning. It’s a tool that leads to more flexibility and growth as an athlete and a human. We can decide which discomfort to choose — the one that keeps us paralyzed and afraid, or one that helps build confidence and attain goals. 

Marie Norton is a licensed professional counselor in residency at RVA Health Online Counseling under the supervision of Michelle O’Brien. She specializes in anxiety, weight management, diet fatigue, body image concerns, emotional eating, and chronic pain. She can be contacted at marie@rvahealthonline.com, or 804-404-3164.