Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions. No matter how much you’ve trained, performance anxiety before or during a competition may occur, hindering the results of your match. While you can tell yourself to stay calm prior to a competition, managing performance anxiety may not be as simple as. Research has shown that strategies such as meditation and guided imagery are great places to start; both ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

No matter how much you’ve trained, performance anxiety before or during a competition may occur, hindering the results of your match.

While you can tell yourself to stay calm prior to a competition, managing performance anxiety may not be as simple as. Research has shown that strategies such as meditation and guided imagery are great places to start; both require your brain to rehearse what you will do during your competition. Your imagination holds much more power than you may expect, helping you focus on how to beat your opponent, instead of other factors that contribute to your anxiety. Adequate preparation also plays a large role.

To master the mental game, it takes time. Starting one month before your competition, consider sitting in solitude in a comfortable position for 15 minutes each day. Focus first on breathing in and out deeply. Then, begin to imagine competition situations and visualize yourself in a fight with your competitor. Be mindful of your anxiety and return your focus to breathing if you feel yourself tense up. Sometimes, you may find yourself thinking self-deprecating or negative thoughts, at which point you should consciously replace any negative self-talk with positive self-talk. During these visualizations, also be sure to think about your posture and form and create cues — mental and verbal — that will help you review and correct your technique.

Pre-competition jitters are completely normal and it’s important to acknowledge that. Accepting that this excitement and/or nervousness is normal will help your body also understand that what you are experiencing is not fear, but perhaps part of your adrenaline response to competition. With more experience, mindful visualization and mental/physical preparation can help you manage and overcome performance anxiety.

(source: https://blog.perfectmind.com/)