We all experience stress in one area or another of our lives. Whether through work, relationships, or even daily tasks, stress often affects performance.
Athletes, like any other human being, cannot evade the consequences of stress. It dictates the success or failure to achieve a good performance from the very best athletes.
Of course, stress does not affect only sports. Online casino players are also very much exposed to the same kind of pressure, which, apart from good decision-making, determines whether they win or lose.
Thankfully, these days, casinos, including sister sites to jackpot city, recognize the need to assist their players in managing stress and do so by enabling them to access a slew of self-help tools, including, but not limited to, ones pertaining to responsible gambling.
Now, let’s talk about how stress can affect athletic performance and compare it to how it affects online players.
Understanding Stress in Athletes
First, it is important to understand what stress really is before exploring how it affects an athlete’s performance. Simply put, stress refers to the body’s response to a challenge or demand—which may be either physical, such as running a marathon, or mental, such as preparing for an examination.
Stress is not always bad; on the contrary, it heightens our ability to focus, motivates us, and equips us to deal with any situation. Extreme stress, however, may eventually result in sports performance anxiety, fatigue, and overall poor performance.
In athletics, there are many sources of stress. It can be because of pressure to win, fear of not winning, or even problems from outside the sport. For certain athletes, this serves as motivation to put more effort into practising their sport and excelling in performance. For other athletes, it can have the opposite effect: it can have an overwhelming effect, causing them to choke under big pressure.
The Physical Impact of Stress
Stress stimulates the secretion of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones are part of what is commonly referred to as the “fight or flight” response, in which the body prepares to deal with events that overwhelm it.
In smaller dosages, this response enriches athletic performance. For example, adrenaline increases heart rate, muscle blood flow, and oxygen consumption, which contribute to positive physical performance.
However, when stress becomes excessive, the constant release of these hormones can create physical symptoms that impede performance. Muscle tension, headache, and rapid heartbeat are things an athlete may experience. The muscles will not respond as efficiently, reaction times will be slower, and coordination will be reduced. Even over the longer term, chronic stress is linked to injuries as the body becomes increasingly vulnerable to fatigue and overuse.
Similarly, stressed online casino players experience a numbing of their physical responses, including quick reflexes and sharp focus, according to gambling experts at NZCasinoHEX for Kiwis. A poker player in exciting online casino games may feel that the bodily expressions of stress — sweaty palms, heartbeat, or trembling fingers — decrease their capacity for an accurate and timely decision.
Mental Effects of Stress
The mental side of stress is even more vital to athletic performance. Performance anxiety sports persons experience lowers their confidence by interfering with the ability to concentrate. A stressed athlete may intellectualize every move, second-guess themselves, and lose sight of the big picture. This self-doubting can result in hesitation, mistakes, and degraded performance.
A sportsperson must retain a sharp mind whenever participating in sporting events requiring instantaneous decisions, such as basketball, soccer, or tennis. When an athlete is stressed, their judgment becomes blurred, and their confidence level is lowered, which impairs making fast, confident decisions. This could prove disastrous in high-pressure situations where one wrong move makes the difference between victory and defeat.
When under pressure, online gamblers face mental stress, too. For instance, a lot of decision-making is involved in poker and blackjack games. A stressed player may doubt their strategy or make hurried decisions, resulting in losses. This is especially true in high-stakes games, where the urge to win can raise stress levels, just like in sports.
Sport Anxiety, Stress, and Performance: The Inverted-U Theory
The Inverted-U Theory, or Yerkes-Dodson Law, is another popular theory that explains the relationship between stress and performance. According to this theory, performance increases with an increase in stress or arousal up to an optimum point, beyond which, with a further increase in stress, it starts to fall.
Now, imagine a bell curve: minimal stress equates to low performance on the low end of that curve because there is not enough excitement or motivation to drive success. Then, as stress increases, so does the performance; the curve rises to an optimal point at which the athlete is focused, motivated, and best capable of performing. If the stress level is increased beyond this peak, the downward slope of performance then occurs. The athlete is too anxious and overwhelmed and can’t perform effectively.
This theory also applies to online casino players. When the pressure level is low, a player might not participate in gaming effectively or pay total attention, leading to careless mistakes. If the stakes have gone up and stress has mounted, the player will start getting more attentive and motivated, reaching their best performance. On the other hand, if the stress is too much to bear, the player will begin making wild bets or poor decisions, much like how an athlete crumbles under pressure in the final moments of a game.
How Athletes Handle Their Stress
Professional athletes emphasize that managing stress is important to performing optimally. Potential techniques an athlete may implement include deep breathing, visualization, and mindfulness to help minimize stress. Deep breathing can help decrease heart rate and calm the mind. Visualization may be used by repeatedly imagining successful outcomes and building up confidence, therefore reducing sport performance anxiety.
Mindfulness has also gained some popularity among athletes since it involves being in the present moment without judgment. It keeps the athlete focused on the present rather than dwelling on potential pitfalls or past mistakes and allows them to be level-headed and composed under pressure. More information on a myriad of benefits the sports have on the person’s mind at the link provided.
Besides this, regular physical training and proper sleep reduce the effects of stress by keeping the body and mind in perfect condition. These can also help online casino gamblers.
Breathing techniques, for example, right before a critical bet, may help clear the head and reduce the likelihood of impulsive decisions. Visualization can also help players envision good results better, increasing their confidence. The key is to stay in the present and not let past losses or fear of future outcomes affect decision-making under pressure.
“Casinos often provide a range of initiatives to help players reduce stress, such as offering comfortable and inviting environments with relaxing lounges, live entertainment, and access to food and beverages,” shares Maia Hall, a celebrated author and gambling expert, at NZCasinoHEX, a reputable online casino reviewer.
“Many jackpot city sister sites also include features like deposit limits, self-exclusion tools, and reminders to take breaks, promoting responsible gaming to prevent overwhelming pressure. These efforts create a more enjoyable and balanced experience, allowing players to manage their stress while playing,” she adds.
Chronic Stress and Burnout
Burnout is one of the major risks associated with chronic stress. Burnout occurs when the stress overwhelms an athlete to a level where they lose interest in and motivation for their sport. This happens when athletes train too hard without allowing themselves time to rest and recover. Burnout leads to a dramatic change where such athletes fall in performance and may quit the sport altogether.
Similarly, online casino players experience burnout. The more time they spend under pressure, the less fun they have; they tend to make more mistakes, lose money, and give up.
Both athletes and casino players should be able to take breaks and achieve some personal balance to avoid the consequences of chronic stress and burnout.
Wrapping Up
Stress is a two-edged sword: while a dose of stress may serve athletes as a helpful stimulant and spur them toward great performances, too much stress often results in poor performances, accidents, and even burnout. The trick is to choose the right balance at which stress heightens the performance without overwhelming the individual.
Online casino players should employ a similar approach. While winning can be motivating and supposedly focusing, too much stress can cause players to make poor decisions on certain moves and may incur more losses than they can bear. Thankfully, online casinos, mainly jackpot city sister casinos, have recognized the need to help players manage their stress and have developed a number of tools with this exact goal in mind.
