Studies have shown that there is a relationship between neurofeedback and mindfulness interventions and its effects on performance and anxiety in sport (Zadkhosh et al., 2018). The ability to deal with anxiety in sport has been shown to be a major factor in the ability to perform in sport (Gould et al., 2002). There are many variables that could be factors in producing anxiety and stress. We know that athletes have to deal with relationships with coaches, parents and teammates. Within the sport they also have to deal with the ability to perform personally, whether the team is winning or losing, along with many other factors. To put this together for example, the athlete may be playing in a football game at their home stadium. They know there will be a big crowd with many people watching. Then once the game starts they have to deal with if they are playing or not, and when they do get into the game are they performing up to standards and making plays, or are they making mistakes. After the game, the athlete will have to deal with the reactions of the coaches and possibly parents. Now if they played poorly, this can cause a massive amount of stress and anxiety on the athlete. This can be detrimental to the athlete’s performance acutely and over time. Researchers specifically wanted to find out how a neurofeedback or mindfulness interventions would affect athlete’s performance and anxiety. Based on previous research in sport psychology, each psychosocial intervention should benefit the football athlete’s performance and reduce sport anxiety (Zadkhosh et al., 2018).
This study includes interventions with neurofeedback and mindfulness.
Neurofeedback interventions give feedback to the athlete based on their brain waves in specific situations (Zadkhosh et al., 2018). Neurofeedback utilizes EEG technology by attaching electrodes to the athlete’s head allowing them to read the brain’s activity (Kaiser & Othmer, 2000). The feedback from the brain waves will be produced either visually through a computer or through audio. This gives the athlete an idea of what is currently going on in their mind and body through brain waves. Zadkhosh et al. (2018), compared neurofeedback interventions to a mirror when you have an injury. In a mirror, you are able to easily see the extent of your injury or wound. Neurofeedback provides the same concepts by allowing the athlete to immediately have feedback on how their brain is reacting to their current situation and environment. Having the ability to see your brain and body’s state before competition can provide benefits to performance based on having the correct amount of arousal (Deeney et al., 2003). The inverted-U theory of arousal plays a role in sports because an athlete does not want to be so low on the curve that they do not have any energy to play, but they also don’t want to be so excited that they are playing out of control. Being able to control arousal levels is a skill in itself and neurofeedback can help us learn this skill (Hanin, 2003). Mindfulness is another type of psychosocial intervention used by sports psychology practitioners to increase performance and reduce anxiety. It was originally applied as an intervention by Buddhists thousands of years ago in Asia (Ost, 2008). Mindfulness itself is a type of meditation that attempts to help you focus attention to the present. This allows you to enter a state of relaxation and can improve mood and enhance emotional control which in turn affect sensory processes (Zeidan et al., 2012). Because of this, mindfulness has been shown to play a role in chronic pain reduction and stress Kabat-Zinn et al., 1992). In terms of sport psychology, mindfulness efforts have had a focus on training mental skills to optimize athletic performance (Moore, 2009). This is important to consider because anyone that plays or has played a sport knows that the mental side of sports will have a large role in how you perform. For example, if you are a high school football player, and you know you’re going up against one of the best players in the state that day, you can either have the mindset that you are going to attack the situation and prove your own game, or you can cower down and let the opponent win. Mindfulness may play a role in allowing you to make the correct decision of how to manipulate your mind and attack the game. Knowing this information, researchers wanted to find out if neurofeedback or mindfulness interventions played a significant role in reducing anxiety and improving performance, and finding which of the two were more valuable for sport psychology practitioners.
Major findings showed that both the neurofeedback and the mindfulness intervention were both significant in reducing sport anxiety and increasing athletic performance compared to just the control group (Zadkhosh et al., 2018). However, it was also shown that anxiety was decreased more in the mindfulness intervention compared to the neurofeedback intervention. These findings were on par with the hypothesis of the study. In terms of sport, a lot of the time coaches and athletes believe that technical skill and physiological capabilities are the greatest predictors of performance. While these variables do play a substantial role, the mental part of the game also needs to be taken into consideration. Kobe Bryant’s “Mamba Mentality” arguably made him the fiercest basketball player that has stepped foot on the court. If he hadn’t had the mindset to work tirelessly to perfect his craft and fear nobody every time he stepped into a competition, the record books very well may be written a different way. He had complete control of his mindset, giving him minimal anxiety and turned it into outstanding athletic performance.
Athlete’s technical mastery for their sport begins at a young age when they start to learn the necessary skills for their sport. But not only are they developing technical skill, they are also developing mental skills. This happens in critical periods of development where the human brain is most plastic to developing skills by developing neural circuitry (Leonard, 1998). Coaches and practitioners need to focus on developing not only those sports skills, but also teaching children about the importance of their mentality for performance. The culture of training and practice should be built around developing the necessary technical and mental skills to make the athlete as successful as possible in their sport in the future. As stated earlier, anxiety can play a major role in a child’s ability to play sport (Jamshidi et al., 2009), and whether or not that child will want to continue playing in the future.
By implementing a mindfulness protocol and teaching the athlete’s about the mental side of the game, we should see increases in performance, and the willingness for the child to continue to play their chosen sports. This early implementation can be continued, and we should see continued results over the period of an athlete’s career playing sports. More studies should be done on athletes at younger ages, possibly performing a longitudinal study of how starting a psychosocial intervention at a young age effects anxiety levels and athletic performance later on in life compared to athletes receiving those interventions when they are already in the later stages of their athletic career.
As far as professional application, I believe these types of interventions can be implemented across all of high school and collegiate athletics, specifically the mindfulness intervention. The neurofeedback intervention may be slightly more costly for schools with a smaller budget, but I believe both would be good sources of mental health training for competing and injured athletes. There are a couple situations in which these interventions would specifically benefit these athletes. For example, we can implement a weekly mindfulness session where athletes can come and learn about the effects of proper meditation and control of their thoughts can benefit them in sport. We can advise them to perform these techniques on a daily basis to show the greatest improvements in reducing anxiety, and how it can improve athletic performance and decrease the risk of injury. Another beneficial implementation of a mindfulness intervention can be applied to an athlete that was recently injured. Imagine an athlete worked harder than ever before in the offseason only to have a catastrophic season-ending injury. You can imagine the state of anxiety this player would be in. It would be extremely beneficial to implement either of these psychosocial interventions for this athlete so we can get their mental health on the correct path before we get their body back on track. In this way, we can optimize the athlete’s mentality towards rehab, and get them back where they need to be to get back on the field for next season and come back even stronger. Overall, neurofeedback and mindfulness interventions may play a significant role in lowering sports anxiety and improving athletic performance
References
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