The Role of Psychology in Sports Performance

“The mind is absolutely instrumental in achieving results, even for athletes. Sports psychology is a very small part, but it’s extremely important when you’re winning and losing races by hundredths and even thousandths of a second”. ~ Michael Johnson (American Retired Sprinter)

As stated by the Indian Journal of Mental Health, 2020, the success of the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi forced the government to establish a separate ministry for sports. After that, sports psychology became a significant facet of India. Given its comprehensive nature, psychology delves into numerous aspects like consciousness, personality, behaviour, and human brain development. If you want to learn how mindset affects sports performance, you’re at the right place.

One of the best NAAC-accredited universities in Rajasthan, like Manipal University, Jaipur, offers ample exposure to its aspirants to learn the significance of psychology in sports performance. Two laboratories, the Psychometric and Personality Testing Lab and Experimental Lab at this university, can foster your practical skills in the competitive landscape. This passage will evaluate psychology as an integral component of sports practices.

Also, you are recommended to explore the top universities of India to pursue a degree in psychology. Moreover, pursuing a career as a psychologist will open up multiple opportunities in consulting, human resources, media, and others.

Psychology in Sports Performance

Mental Toughness

Psychology, as the scientific study of behaviour, has a crucial role in inducing the mental toughness of humans. Mental toughness for young athletes means managing distractions to perform effectively in the competition. With the help of rigorous research, sports psychologists assist athletes in developing their mental resilience.

They can handle challenges and competitive pressure because of psychological perseverance. MUJ, one of the top universities of India, organises guest lectures and seminars to provide experiential learning on mental toughness. Aspiring candidates in psychology-related programs can learn more about psychology's impact on athletes' mental toughness.

Concentration

The athletes need to maintain concentration in sports. Psychological study ensures learning techniques to focus on the goal by avoiding distractions. As stated by Mugdha Dhamankar-Bavare, he has always tried to shift his focus from winning to enjoying the game/sport.

An athlete must consider five psychological factors that may affect sports concentration.

• Focusing too much
• Crowd noise
• Expecting from others
• Lack of sleep
• Thinking about future

The psychology department at Manipal University, Jaipur, focuses on teaching about factors like motivation, goal-setting, and concentration. Here, you will learn about the well-equipped strategies that foster concentration and relaxation among athletes.

Anxiety and Stress Management

As an athlete, one can face the everyday problems of stress and anxiety, which impact the sport's performance. Management of anxiety and stress is a practice to deal with the complexities that create barriers to effective sports performance. Sports psychologists can suggest ways to help athletes remain calm in different situations.

• Practice Relaxation Technique
• Professional Assistance
• Meditation
• Engagement Towards Pleasurable Activities

Top universities of India, like MUJ, often provide learning on treatment for athletes' anxiety to foster your career progression as a sports psychologist. A certain level of arousal also assists an individual in preparing for a sports competition.

Building Confidence

“If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win”. ~ Carl Lewis

Let us explore some benefits of building confidence (psychological factor) in sports performance.

• Arouses Positive Emotions
• Affects Goals
• Increases Efforts
• Improves Concentration

Needless to say, confidence is significantly correlated with skilful sports performance. By influencing confidence in the thought process, one can deal with several psychological disorders, cognitive biases, and other behavioural problems. Experienced faculty members at Manipal University, Jaipur, can help you learn about the types of confidence in the behaviour of individual athletes. These include optimal self-confidence, lack of faith, and overconfidence.

Ethical Decision-Making

Making ethical and moral choices is necessary for athletes to sustain sportsmanship. Ethical decision-making is an element under the psychological aspect that assists players in maintaining their reputation in the competitive landscape.

But as an athlete, what is it to be ethical and to have integrity?

It is more than identifying problems from which one cannot agree every time. In today’s world, sportspersons have an ethical framework that fosters their decisions based on clubs, values, and ethics. Here, you can go through the four dimensions of the ethical decision-making framework for better sports performance.

• Getting the Facts
• Recognising in Yourself
• Making a Decision
• Committing to Action

Adversity and Resilience

Sports psychology helps athletes learn about the measures to overcome failures, losses, and setbacks. The concept of resilience can allow individuals to grow from the challenges. Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Manipal University, Jaipur, will provide you with experiential learning on how resilience can help athletes survive, recover, and thrive in complex situations to improve sports performance.

According to Forbes, past struggles can assist an athlete to become more resilient in different ways.

• By triggering post-traumatic growth
• By increasing empathy
• By building self-efficacy
• By assisting in finding better

Sports psychologists have a significant role in making sports persons aware of adversity and resilience to boost their performance in the competition.

Conclusion

The above passage concludes that understanding psychological implications is essential for athletes. Sports psychology became more accepted as compared to earlier in the competitive landscape.

By addressing the aforementioned psychological aspects, one can perform in the best way to reach their full potential. School of Humanities and Social Sciences (Manipal University, Jaipur) offers numerous psychology-related programs to meet the market requirements for experts. Explore the official website for more details and enrol now.