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From Lockdown to Playing Grounds: Psychological Strategies to Help Athletes Cope with the New Normal

The sudden and unforeseen outbreak of the novel coronavirus has deeply obstructed the daily lives of individuals all across the world. While the majority of the population is discussing, debating and deliberating about tanking economies, fluid government policies, overburdened healthcare systems and several thousands of casualties caused by COVID-19, there is also a large population of sportspersons suffering from a sense of uncertainty about their future.

Over the past few months, the cancellation and postponement of major sporting events and the closure of all training facilities have disrupted orderly regimes of athletes and restrained them within the walls of their homes. The sense of confinement that has come from the quarantine period has had a debilitating impact on the psychological well-being of athletes. Sporting legends like Serena Williams, Clarisse Agbegnenou, and Michael Phelps have shared their personal experiences of undergoing a turmoil of emotions, accompanied by instability and confusion.

Nonetheless, now as countries begin to ease restrictions and lift the lockdowns, professional sporting events are recommencing with athletes carefully returning to their playing arenas. With the football leagues, Formula One, golf and cricket restarting its season behind closed doors, players are beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

While for some athletes returning to sports might seem like a breath of fresh air, others might be grappling with the mayhem and distress inculcated by the virus. Despite the lockdowns, the number of COVID-19 cases continue to surge rapidly across the sphere, leaving athletes on the horns of dilemma. Moreover, the increase of COVID-19 cases within the sporting fraternity with some prominent athletes like Novak Djokovic and a few others contracting the virus has further magnified the paranoia amongst sportspersons.

However, amid the pandemic, sporting authorities and organisations are making all the necessary efforts and leaving no stone unturned to create a physically safe and bio-secure environment for the athletes to compete in.

While all the necessary precautions are being taken and athletes are preparing themselves to return to sport, it is also necessary for them to work on the mental aspect of their game alongside fine tuning their technique and physically strengthening their bodies in order to manage the psychological demands of the current unprecedented situation.

As a Chartered Sport and Performance Psychologist with the British Psychological Society (BPS), I outline the following psychological strategies that can help athletes adapt to the new normal and assist them in getting back to the field successfully:

Establish a re-entry plan by setting realistic goals

The journey of athletes returning back to sports after a prolonged period of sedentariness might be challenging with the path being obstructed with potholes and barriers. For instance, athletes might struggle to get back into their earlier fitness levels and also feel rusty while stepping out onto the field after a long break.

However, to safely return to training and avoid any injuries, it is important for athletes to have a re-entry plan by recalibrating their short-term and long-term goals with the assistance of their coaches and other support staff members.

When resuming practice, some athletes might find themselves feeling disoriented, lacking motivation and experiencing frustration, as the goals that they had set earlier have now diminished. Therefore, re-setting goals will help them navigate their way back into play proficiently, as it will provide them with a sense of direction and clear focus. Further, setting goals will have a positive impact on their motivation levels and will allow athletes to remain energised and productive during training and competitions.

Overall, setting realistic goals and progressing forward step-by-step will prevent overexertion and burnout among players, permitting them to gradually reach their optimal level of preparedness for future upcoming events. 

Control the controllables

In times of such uncertainty, many athletes might find themselves experiencing immense stress and anxiety by focusing on things that are not directly in their control. For instance, When will this end? What if I contract the virus? What impact will it have?

While these kinds of thoughts are valid and understandable, they can result in excessive stress and anxiety, fear, anger and disappointment, as athletes are investing a great deal of their time and energy over aspects that they have no control over. Therefore, it is essential for sportspersons to divert their attention to things they can control in the current bizarre situation.

Instead of constantly worrying about the unpredictable scenario and fearing contracting the virus, the athletes should divert their focus and energy on aspects that are within their control. For instance, athletes should take care of their nutrition and sleeping patterns, focus on exercising and training safely, follow physical distancing protocols and wear a mask and sanitise their hands when required.

During these challenging times, athletes should ‘control the controllables‘ to keep their stress and anxiety levels at bay.

Learn to cope with the absence of crowd during competitions

The sporting events, besides being defined by which player shines or team triumphs, is also characterised by its exhilarating atmosphere with the cheering and elated shrieks of the crowd when athletes exhibit mastery in their performances.

Within sports, it is believed that the presence of a crowd can facilitate performance, as athletes tend to push themselves and aspire to perform to their best abilities when friends, family or others are watching them. The presence of an audience is often believed to increase the arousal levels and in turn, enhance performance among skilled sportspersons.

Though the games are commencing after the hiatus caused by COVID-19; this time in the absence of spectators. The establishments are trying to reconstruct an illusionary experience by incorporating fake crowd noise, cardboard banners of fan cut-outs and creating Zoom walls via video calls on big screens. Nevertheless, some players and teams might still experience psychological challenges due to lack of viewers that can have a drastic impact on their performance. For instance, the performance of all the home teams in the German domestic circuit was impacted with them performing poorly compared to pre-Covid-19 games, by having scored fewer goals than they did in jam-packed arenas.

The show must go on

Under such circumstances, it is important for athletes to intrinsically motivate themselves in order to be aroused and stimulated throughout the competition. The athletes should concentrate on improving their performance rather than focusing on the final outcome of the sporting event. For instance, the players should focus on their personal performance goals and challenge themselves to outdo their own previous records. This way, the athletes will feel more in control of their performance and the personal satisfaction of attaining their goals will keep them involved and determined throughout their participation in sports.

First published in Psychreg on 2nd October, 2020

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The Psychological Challenges Being Faced by Students due to Coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic that surfaced from Wuhan, China resulting from a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection or COVID-19 has in its wake ensued a socio-economic calamity, setting ‘sense of security’ on fire causing mass hysteria thereby disrupting the psychological well-being of mankind.

Despite the lockdowns, the number of COVID-19 cases in India continue to surge at a rapid rate with several thousands of critically ill patients being admitted to hospitals daily. As healthcare professionals stand on the line of defense, the rest of the world hangs in a limbo battling hysteria, misinformation, monotony, and panic. In the current scenario, mental health suffers irreparably as every individual becomes an island battling his or her own grievances, despite being sheltered under their safe havens. Among the deeply impacted is also the large population of students in India and across the globe alike, trying to rein in the youthful exuberance that burns into hostility, turmoil and violent outbursts with each passing day. The empty playgrounds, vacant cafeterias, forlorn malls and educational institutions standing still in pin drop silence, hints at the destructive agony the youths suffer in today’s quarantined reality.

Suffering the looming unpredictability from the confines of their homes over the past few months has left students across the country feeling extremely stressed, experiencing immense anxiety and disappointment.Therefore, it is of utmost importance to understand the psychological challenges being faced by most of the students of our nation in order to support them efficiently during these challenging times. The major psychological challenges that students battle today with are as follows:

Stress and Anxiety. With nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait for the virus to die, the overactive human brain is bound to short circuit while mulling over a thousand things that didn’t go as planned. With mid-way cancellation of final board examinations and now the university and entrance examinations hanging in balance, has crushed students with unanswered questions and further resulted in them experiencing exaggerated amounts of anxiety. For students with international study plans, the lockdowns have been like a hammer to their well curated plans. In the light of the pandemic, with increasing unemployment and economic disruption, suddenly academics and career prospects don’t seem so foolproof.

In India, the rapid digitalization of educational services in the face of an inadequate infrastructure resulting in connectivity glitches and cyber insecurity has been a significant issue garnering concern. The overnight shift to making classes online without considering the immense digital divide has also been a major stressor. Although, the educational institutions have easily transitioned to the online medium to continue teaching, a significant question that arises is – are the students actually learning?

Caught amidst attending virtual classes, experiencing connectivity issues coupled with long hours of screen time is causing eye damage and a perpetual state of tiredness called zoom fatigue among students. On top of this, there is constant pressure on students to learn and grow independently in the absence of their teachers and peers. Thus, students are tightly strung to keep things afloat. In addition, all this stress is manifesting itself among students through hostility, irritability, mood swings, dysfunctional sleeping and eating cycles.

With the insane death numbers and the fraudulent data flooding the social media, mass hysteria is being fuelled. Between the uncertainty and the vivid news coverage, the fear of losing a loved one or facing death has become very prevalent and alive.

Furthermore, the anticipatory anxiety over newer disruptions, changing syllabus, schools re-opening and changing personal academic expectations is resulting in students being stressed and anxious fervently during the lockdown.

Demotivation and procrastination. Educational institutions with their structured routines, time-tables, inter-house activities, rigorous curriculums and timely evaluations promote uniformity, structure and a sense of control among students. The morning assemblies, mentor sessions and healthy competitions help provide a positive direction to the youthful angst by boosting their morale. However, in the face of the pandemic, it is extremely difficult and challenging to re-create the enthusiasm and kinship of a classroom from behind a virtual screen.

With spending the majority of their time at home, students are now struggling to cope with the unexpected disruption in their routines, thus lacking motivation and are procrastinating way more than ever before. In normal circumstances, most students would promptly complete their assignment the night before submission as the fear of physically facing the teacher would act as a driving force to complete the task, even if they are not enthusiastic about the given assignment. With online classes, that motivation is lacking. Furthermore, students sit through one online class after another, too tired to learn but alert enough to attend to roll calls.

While the studies may continue as usual, the educational upbringing has come to a halt, leaving students vulnerable to their own potentials. These factors have reduced motivation that in turn is leading to lapses in academic performance of students during Covid-19. 

Isolation. Human beings are social animals. The sense of confinement that has come from the quarantine phase is counterproductive to mental health and well-being. Social distancing is like a double-edged sword. Although it is the strongest defence against this pandemic, it is also plainly destructive to the quality of life. Physical interaction (be it a handshake, a smile or a hug) and ceremonies (be it weddings, graduations or even funerals) assure the warmth of human company, thereby adding meaning to life. However, the mandates to maintain physical distancing and social  restrictions during the pandemic has made it challenging to keep loneliness at bay.

Educational institutions act as catalysts in forming friendships and building connections. Physical interactions among like-minded individuals inspire growth, create memories and serve as a foundation for life time alliances, but above all make learning recreational. However, attending online classes has deprived students of all these opportunities and resulted in them feeling isolated due to lack of face-to-face interactions.

The fear of contracting the virus is also steadily distancing students away from family, friends and neighbours, embedding in them a foreboding sense of loneliness. The solitude created by the pandemic gently tightens around their necks like a necklace gone wrong and these moments of distress make students more vulnerable to psychological ailments.

Coronavirus has changed the world into a reality that has threatened the normalcy that students have been used to. It is perilously close to destroying the progress made over the years, both socially as well as psychologically. While everyone suffers at the hands of this pandemic, students are the most susceptible to its manipulations. Therefore, it is essential for the government and other concerned educational authorities to make provisions of peer support networks and online psychological support across the country to help students cope with the current situatio n efficiently and to keep their morale lifted.

“Tough times never last, but tough people do” – Robert H. Schuller

Image credit: Freepik

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Vaani Barmola, a student of B.Sc. Clinical Psychology

Nanaki J. Chadha, Chartered Sport & Performance under the British Psychological Society (BPS). Alongside, a researcher and doctoral student at Staffordshire University, U.K.