An Opening Blog to My Peers:

Hi guys and gals,

Well, I think we can all agree with the combination of athletics, school, work and our personal difficulties throughout our lives are sometimes too hard to handle, but we all continue to strive and push through. Why? What makes us push through? What makes us stress out? Does it affect how we perceive information? Well of course it does!

For a few months now, I have been conducting my own research and my own analysis of stress and performance. We all know that stress can help support our ability to focus, motivate us to do hard work, gain a competitive edge, and prepare to perform at optimal levels. But conversely, too much stress can cause a performance anxiety which usually does not allow relaxation, confidence, or any kind of focus. Everyone experiences stress; good and bad. On one hand, Some stress can be positive for excitement and thrill, but on the other hand, some can instill anxiety and apprehension causing a decline in performance. Any kind of jitters will also cause restlessness and discomfort, but the ability to cope effectively with these jitters is crucial to seek consistent peak in performance.

There are a couple of factors that can be affected by stress and anxiety, those factors would be; stress and performance, stress response and stress management, and in fact these can both be effected negatively and positively. The stress response process consists of five stages. Stage one being the Environmental Demand or the physical and psychological aspect. Stage two is the Individuals perception of the environmental demand or the amount of threat perceived. Stage three is the stress response, meaning any arousal, muscle tension, attentional changes, and state anxiety. The fourth stage is the behavioral consequences or the performance outcome. Stage five is always referred back to a homeostatic position. This is a repetitive phase for both positive and negative stress anxiety.

My objective of this research was to better understand stress and composure in sports. I wish I could have researched more on students in school as well, but with limitations of having not enough subjects and/or time, I could not allow any illegitimate research. The way I proposed I would study this topic, I used the TLU volleyball program and I had decided to assess pre and post-game surveys analyzing their ability to cope with stress, their personal well-being, if they were nervous and if they expected a high result in the performance. These surveys were on a scale of 0-3, "0" being highly-unlikely (negative) and "3" being highly-likely (positive). In addition to the surveys, I also took specific statistical information from each game and tallied up the scores. The specifics were skills of that are vital to every point in order for a game to be successful. "Passing" or defense was one of the skills I used in order to tally the scores in a 0-3 scale. Serving of course was a hit or miss, and hitting was also on the same 0-3 scale. After retrieving all of the statistics, I ran them through a t-test. A t-test is a measurement used on Microsoft Excel in order to measure the central tendency of numbers such as; mean, median, and mode, standard deviation and variation.

The results found in this particular research are quite interesting. I found a definite positive correlation between the surveys and game statistics proving my theory was correct. When there was a negative balance of survey scores, there were also a negative balance between the athletes and their performance. Vice versa when the survey scores and statistics were positive. So, since I answered the question "Does it affect how we perform?" let's get back to my other questions of "what makes us push through" and "what makes us stress out?" After the entire TLU volleyball season had ended, I assessed one last survey. These questions were a little different, because I wanted to know what made them push through the hard times, what makes them tick (what drives them), and was there any point of almost giving-up? 100% of the girls answered they never came close to giving up. Almost all of the girls also answered the motivated stress induced the competitive edge they gained. The girls also answered in the mist of it all, the excitement and thrill of game-day was "better than any day of the week."

Converting the athletes back to class and just a normal student's life of homework, family, friends and school work; can we have the same drive? I believe so. We all have the capability to give up, but that's way too easy. It's just as easy to come up with a competitive edge in class, wishing for that higher valued grade from your professor. The slightest positive feedback will always keep you striving forward, and when we have those days of feeling like a complete failure, we take a step back (procrastinate) and then move forward from there. What do you think? What motivates you?

References:
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