Anxiety around Competing

YoungMinds is a children’s mental health charity with a clear vision: to see a world where no young person feels alone with their mental health. The YoungMinds blog  is a place where young people can share their experiences, use their voice to support others, and contribute their stories to a number of monthly themes.

The YoungMinds Digital Writers Pool is open to anyone aged between 14-25 living in the UK, and Artswork have been encouraging young people currently employed as part of our third Kickstart cohort to contribute their writing to the site.

This month, Publicity Assistant Sophie Jones has responded to the theme of Anxiety around competing by producing a blog to share her own experiences. Read her blog below:

After competing for over 10 years as a professional figure skater both nationally and internationally, pre-competition nerves were almost second nature to me. I was in an out of school being shipped around Europe to represent GB, which meant the pressures to be emotionless, calculated, and most importantly, the best, were on. All of the time.  

It felt heavy and gruelling; everyone in my life demanded excellence and nothing less – a normal childhood was out of the question for me as I spent 5 hours a day, 6 days a week training. After years of being conditioned to feel worthless if I was anything less than first place, it took a toll on my mental and physical health. But, as I learnt, there’s ways of coping, managing, and dealing with anxieties around competing and learning to have acceptance when things don’t go to plan or as well as planned.  

These are my top tips for managing anxiety around competing: 

Feeling confident within yourself and your abilities

Feeling confident within yourself and your abilities is a large part to being calm and collected before a big competition. From the moment you arrive at the event, Visualise the best possible outcome from your own perspective, close your eyes and feel it, and follow it through until the end. Do whatever you can to make the imagined experience seem as real as possible, and by imagining the experience you’ll help translate what you feel into reality and settle some of the nerves.

Block out anything negative

Whether this is external comments such as friends, family or coaches pressuring you, or that little voice in your head telling you “I’m not good enough” or “I’m going to fail”These emotions / feelings around and towards your aren’t helpful and will put you under immense pressure, causing anxiety and many other negative feelings. Instead try positive affirmations such as “I will do my best” “I can do this” etc and ask those around you to do the same.

Relaxation, breathing and grounding techniques 

Relaxation, breathing and grounding techniques, such as meditation, can be helpful in reducing the physical symptoms on anxiety. These techniques can be used at any time leading up to a performance or competition, and may be really helpful when used the night before or in the hours leading up to an event to help keep nerves at bay. Some useful grounding techniques to support anxiety in competing that I find really useful can be found by clicking here.

Sometimes a competition doesn’t go to plan, but it’s so important to remember that’s okay, and you did your best. It can feel crushing for your self-esteem, but your mental health is more important and there’s plenty positive ways of managing it. 

If you’re struggling with anxiety, the NHS website offers routes of finding support or treatment. Click here to read them: Anxiety – Every Mind Matters – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

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For 15 – 25 yrs mental health Mental Health and Wellbeing young people youngminds Youth Blog