Performance anxiety among AFL players can cause debilitating symptoms, forcing some to miss games of football, according to a sport psychologist who has worked at three clubs.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, said Dr Matt McGregor, a psychologist with 25 years’ experience who has worked extensively in the football industry.
The spectre of performance anxiety for AFL players.Credit: Artwork: Stephen Kiprillis
He warned that if the issue was swept under the rug and players tried to push through, they could be at risk of long-term harm, well beyond their playing career.
McGregor explained that performance anxiety was increasingly a reason for players to be sidelined, and physical effects could include loss of muscle co-ordination, putting players at risk of injury, and breathing problems.
“But if they talk about it, we can help them, and they don’t have to suffer in the dark,” Dr McGregor said.
It is difficult to track the number of players suffering from what McGregor described as a specific version of general anxiety because clubs protect the confidentiality of their players, but he believes clubs are becoming better at managing the issue.
“I think it’s becoming more acceptable and therefore probably more common,” he said.
“I’ve been working in sport for 25 years, it was very much a kind of a dirty secret. Very few people were prepared to talk about it, even to psychologists. They certainly weren’t prepared to talk about it to coaches and to teammates.”
McGregor recalled being in a coach’s meeting at a club in the mid-2000s where an assistant coach said a player had confided in him that he was suffering from the anxiety to perform. He said the senior coach responded: “Well, he’ll never play again.”
McGregor said times had changed for the better, even though the scrutiny of AFL players has never been more intense within clubs, from fans and in the media where duelling TV networks have panel shows every night of the week.
What is performance anxiety?
McGregor describes it as a specific version of general anxiety, which is activated in all of us at times of stress.
Anxiety is useful because it can help us remain alert in day-to-day situations, such as looking both ways before crossing the street.
However, McGregor said too much anxiety can be distracting and even debilitating.
“The peculiar thing about sport performance situations is, as opposed to, say, business, where you can say, well, I’ll just shelve that for now … footballers can’t say, ‘hey, just hold the game up for 10 minutes here, I’m just going to go and calm myself down’.
“So performance anxiety is that type of anxiety that occurs when we perceive some sort of threat around performance.”
He explained that how athletes perceive threats can depend on their personality type. All athletes need a certain amount of arousal to perform at the required level.
But when that arousal rises to become “cognitive anxiety” or a distraction it can cross the line into stress, dread and fear.
“We certainly do have some performers who will absolutely thrive. You know, they … run towards the fire, people who thrive under those stressful conditions,” McGregor said. “Even though they still have a tipping point where, if we keep increasing that, or they keep perceiving extra threat and pressure, there’ll be a tipping point … where the anxiety starts to get in the way.”
‘It was torture, every week’
St Kilda great Nick Riewoldt opened up on Channel Seven this week about his struggles with anxiety even though it never caused him to miss a game.
The five time All-Australian held himself to extremely high standards, on and off the field.
“As someone that has struggled with anxiety at various stages throughout my life, for me there was always a difference between anxiety … and performance anxiety,” Riewoldt said.
“The 24 hours leading into a game I found to be torture, every week, excruciating, but it was just something you had to navigate because it was your responsibility as a player.
Nick Riewoldt suffered from anxiety during his career. Credit: Getty Images
“I never missed a game because it was my responsibility to play. But I feel for the clubs at the same time because they have invested so heavily and they want them (their players) out there.
“I don’t have the answer but I am sensitive to it.”
‘Every part of your performance is dissected’
McGregor explained that playing with performance anxiety can increase the risk of physical injury.
“If you don’t do this right, if you don’t position your body correctly, you can get really seriously hurt,” he said.
“But then there’s the psychological threat as well. So we’re doing this very publicly. There’s a whole lot of people when you’re performing in AFL at the top level, watching on and every part of your performance is judged and dissected. And so that you know, the performance anxiety of a threat can be that psychological one.”
McGregor warned that not dealing with the root cause of the anxiety, and simply playing through it, could cause deeper problems.
“If we push a player out onto the field who’s not ready, whether that’s physical or mental, if they’re not feeling capable, it’s going to be counterproductive,” he said.
“They’re going to experience more failure. You know, they won’t have … that co-ordination and skill.”
High levels of anxiety can also lead to players being unable to focus on everything that’s happening on the field.
“In a dynamic game like AFL, where there are 35 other players on the ground, all moving in different directions, there’s a lot to pay attention to,” McGregor explained.
“You get this sort of attentional narrowing, where their ability to take in all of these different cues and figure out what’s important right now and shift their attention is reduced.
“So we’re kind of setting them up for failure, physically and psychologically; they’re not going to be able to perform well, which ends up in a worsening the problem.
“When it gets to that point, we’re better off taking them back and working through … [a] desensitisation process… We build them up, and we give them coping strategies so that they do learn to cope with higher and higher levels of stress.”
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