Anxiety and stress in athletes' performance: how the sports psychologist helps regulate emotions

What went off in the mind of tennis player Jannik Sinner after he missed three match points at Roland Garros against Carlos Alcaraz? Why did the Inter footballers appear on the pitch as if they were 'drained' in the Champions League final against Paris Saint Germain? Was the young swimmer Benedetta Pilato right to cheer for her fourth place at the Paris 2024 Olympics? The management of anxiety and stress in sports performance, for great champions but also in our own and our children's athletic or competitive activities, was discussed during the event dedicated to prevention 'Destinazione Salute' that the San Donato Group organised in collaboration with the 24 Ore Group on Sunday 29 June in Milan.

The protagonists, together with the audience, were the clinical psychologists Andrea Fossati and Ilaria Polenghi - the latter a bronze medallist in the 2014 European Cup of twirling - who started from what can happen even to great champions to explain how negative emotions such as anxiety and stress affect sports performance, giving advice on how to counteract them not only to competitive athletes, but also to family members in the case of children or adolescents. All this, to be contextualised in a society like ours, which demands success always and at all costs. When instead sport should be seen and promoted among young people first and foremost for its community value and its ability to teach confrontation with others.

'One of the most beautiful interviews I have heard,' explained Andrea Fossati, clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at the Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy Service at the San Raffaele Turro Hospital and Full Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Psychology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, 'is that of a very young swimmer, Benedetta Pilato, who did not win the Olympics but came fourth. When asked by the interviewer how she felt about the 'wooden' medal, she replied that she would certainly have liked to win but that it was already a lot for her to be there, at the Olympics. That's it, an athlete has to be happy with what he or she achieves in order to then 'move the limit'. This is the meaning and we are sure that at the next Olympics Pilato will do even better'. A virtuous example, the one brought by Professor Fossati, which all too often has as its counterpart the myth of the 'loser' or 'winner'. That crushes professional athletes as well as the 'chicks' of neighbourhood five-a-side football pitches.

Remaining on professionals and great champions, 'sportsmen and women have a life in which it is more difficult for them to differentiate between personal and professional,' the expert emphasised, 'partly because of the simplification of communication that impacts on them when they are perhaps also at the centre of the news; much because they live in their performance, that is, if we are talking about professional sport, total dedication is required of them. It is therefore difficult for them to invest little expectation in their results but also to manage not to be contaminated by the expectations of others, whether it is the fans shouting at the stadium or the audience at home or those who arrive at Roland Garros wearing an orange wig. Then, for example, in cases like Sinner's, the ghost of a three-month suspension and regulatory uncertainty also weighs heavy on your mind, so that scary shingles can fall on your head. In the past, too, we had cases of great athletes who ended up in the dust. It seems unlikely that all their magnificent performances were perceived as 'erasable' by the result of a blood test'.

Then there is the anxiety of the expectations, on the boys, of coaches who are not always up to current knowledge. Or the pressure of family members themselves: there are parents who let you off the hook and if you're good you'll go ahead, if not, then so be it; others who, even in field sports, have 'out-of-this-world' expectations. A climate that creates harm to young people and certainly does not help them on the anxiety front. "When you have to manage the athlete's anxiety in a kid, you often also have to manage the pressure of the family system - warns Ilaria Polenghi, clinical psychologist at the Service of Clinical Psychology of the Age of Development at the Irccs Ospedale San Raffaele Turro -. For parents, first of all, it can be useful to give practical advice so as not to overburden their children, but if anything to help them: there are times when the father or mother may not have all the tools to give active support and at that point it may be important to ask for the intervention of a professional. Just as if I need a dietary plan I go to the nutritionist or if I have a sore knee I go to the orthopaedist,' adds Polenghi, 'if I have a difficulty in managing anxiety and emotions I can think of turning to a figure who can help, and this is where the sports psychologist comes in.