2021, Japan, Summer Olympics Games. An English diver, Tom Daley, knits to calm his mind before performing a perfectly synchronized jump from a 10-meter platform.
After the picture of him went viral, the athlete said knitting was “the primary thing that kept him sane during the competition.” Tom won a golden medal that year and made a knitted pouch to hold it.
If you’re a competitive athlete, coping with anxiety is a big part of your life. Tom found knitting and won gold. What helps you get in the zone and show your top performance?

How Anxiety Lowers Your Performance
Anxiety often manifests as negative self-talk: “You’re not good enough,” “You can’t do this,” or “You’re not worth it.” Thoughts like these disrupt your flow, a focused state where body and mind align for peak performance. An inner critic isn’t bad; they want us to become better, but when they turn into toxic tyrants, you need to intervene and tell them to back off.
Anxiety can also arise when you worry about meeting others’ expectations. The fear of failure becomes overwhelming, and racing thoughts make it hard to stay focused.
Here’s how to deal with anxiety-borne symptoms:
Physical Symptoms Of Anxiety In Athletes—And How To Cope
Muscle Tension
Listen to your body. How does it feel? Is it tense? If so, you might need some stretching and massage.
One way to deal with anxiety is to gradually tense and relax the muscles of your body. This will help shift your focus away from thoughts and concentrate on your body and its needs.
Poor sleep and recovery
Anxious thoughts may cause insomnia and intermittent sleep. You may wake up tired, skip the workout, and underdeliver, and everything will fall apart.
To recover well, ventilate your room, skip caffeine, and take 5 minutes to meditate before sleep.
Change of appetite
Anxiety can disrupt your athlete's appetite and lead to either overeating or loss of appetite due to stress and hormonal changes.
Practice relaxation techniques like deep breathing, and eat a balanced diet with proteins and veggies. Carry a water bottle to stay hydrated during training and recovery.
Mental Symptoms Of Anxiety In Athletes: How To Modulate Inner Chatter
Overthinking
Overthinking interrupts the state of flow. The more you overthink, the more you tend to exaggerate problems and blame yourself. It’s a spiral.
Schedule your feelings just as you plan the important tasks. Sit down and give yourself 10 minutes to worry. Then, return to the daily grind.
Lowered Confidence
Anxiety often distorts how you see yourself and your challenges. It can make you fear failure and cause thoughts like "Am I good enough?" or "Can I do this?" It might also make you feel like an underdog, even when that's not the case.
These are not the best ideas to keep in your head before hitting the gym or preparing for a game. Substitute them with positive affirmations: “I love myself,” “I am becoming what I want to be,” and “I am allowed to lead a better life.”
Mental Weariness
Anxiety exhausts the mind and causes a loss of concentration.
Think of Serena Williams preparing to score: she leaves everything behind to focus. To cope with anxiety, Serena practices journalling and meditation—maybe you should try, too?
Don’t Let Anxiety Ruin Your Performance: 3 Quick Tips
Talk to someone
Call or text your friend and share your thoughts. Sharing your feelings and getting a third person’s perspective on your situation can help you notice the triggers that fuel your anxiety and offer insights for coping.
If you have no one to talk to, try Liven's AI companion, Livie. Chat with her when you need support, advice, or someone to share your troubles with. She’ll listen without judgment and suggest ideas for the next steps.
Visualize different outcomes
So, you have this critical match day on Friday. Paint a picture: how do you want it to go? Why is it essential for you? What do you want to achieve? What can you do to prepare better? What do you want to feel?
This method counters catastrophizing by encouraging you to imagine both positive and neutral scenarios, preventing you from focusing solely on the worst-case outcome.
If you feel like it, write your thoughts in a notebook. Putting them on paper can make your troubles feel less overwhelming. You can write out each scenario one by one to visualize each line of development of events.
Compare yourself to yourself
We all have unique stories and life experiences. You don’t know how long and hard the other athletes have been working on themselves to achieve their body goals. The only person you need to compare yourself to is yourself. Praise yourself for every achievement, even if it’s just taking 10 minutes to walk around the house. Small steps help build long-lasting behaviors.
With time and practice, you’ll gradually learn to modulate your inner chatter and train it to be more optimistic. If Tom Daley could do it, so would you. Btw, he has already retired to become a diving coach and a Youtuber. He recently flew to Tokyo to visit his knitting exhibition—talk about turning anxiety into something cool!
Summary:
- Anxiety can significantly decrease your sports performance as it leads to overthinking, mental blurriness, and negative self-talk
- With proper means of support, like visualization, you can take your anxiety under control—and come out on top
- Don’t be hard on yourself, though. Learning to channel your feelings and noticing negative self-talk takes time. Keep a score. Whenever you catch your inner critic being toxic, give yourself +1 CP (care point). Soon enough, you’ll be doing it on auto-pilot.
Related Pages
- Sports and Mental Health
- Mental Health and Well-Being in Sports
- Benefits of Exercise on Our Health
- Keeping Motivated When Training
- Exercise and the Brain — regular exercise positively impacts brain function and your mental health.
- Sport psychology factors of success in sports
