Why Athletes Choke Under Pressure | Sports Psychology | Optimal Level of Arousal

This video uses sports psychology theories to explain why athletes choke under pressure. In order to perform under pressure, athletes must find and attain their own optimal level of anxiety. I use the Cue Utilization, Multidimensional Anxiety, Yerkes-Dobson and the IZOF theories to explain the mental processes that lead us to choke under pressure. We can use these theories to gain a general understanding of what goes on in our mind in order to prepare for decisive moments in our competitions. The key takeaway from the video is that as anxiety increases, our attention narrows. When our attention narrows, our ability to process important information needed to perform becomes momentarily impaired. This leads us to miss important information that we need to make good decisions. As we start to make mistakes, our level of anxiety increases even more, leading us to more mistakes. This continuous in a vicious cycle, leading us to choke under the pressure. Also, when our anxiety increases, our attention can narrow to such a granular level that we begin to consciously think about performing movements that we normally perform automatically. Consciously thinking about the movement disrupts the automatic process and can result in mistakes. In part 2 of this video, I will talk about mental and physical strategies that you can use to increase or decrease your level of anxiety at will to reach your optimal state of performance.