Managing Arousal Levels For Peak Performance

The primary purpose of this post is to make you aware of the importance of being able to manage your arousal levels so that you can achieve peak athletic performance.  In addition I hope to provide you with tips and tactics so that you can develop the mental strength skills necessary to elevate your athletic performance and help you achieve peak performance and reach your athletic goals.

In a previous post I asked you to assess your mental strength skills in relation to athletic performance.  In this assessment you answered several questions that helped you determine what areas of mental strength and mental skills needed development, specifically the ones that directly related to enhancing your athletic performance.

A critical mental strength skill from this assessment was arousal management.  Up to know I have mentioned in other post and today we’ll take a closer look.

Let me ask you, when you hear the phrase “arousal management,” what do you think of?

If you’re many other athletes, you probably think this basically controlling your nerves.  That is, calming yourself during times of high arousal/energy/excitement.

I’ll tell you that arousal management is much more; it is a multifaceted mental strength skill that involves not just the ability to relax when too nervous but also the ability to activate when flat or lethargic.  Both of these types of energy have a significant effect on your athletic performance.

Also, arousal management in not simply physical, it has both mental and physical aspects. Therefore athletes need to be able to active or relax both minds and their bodies to effectively manage arousal.

Let’s look at how you can start to more effectively understand and utilize your energy to reach peak performance.

Answer the following questions and see which ones have ever been true for you:

• Are there days at the gym and when you feel like you can’t complete one rep much less two sets or 10?

• Has stress from a long day ever caused you to bail on a workout or unenthusiastically go through the motions?

• Have you ever been waiting to start a 5k or 10k race and found your self yawning and not really caring about how you’ll do?

• Or, prior to a race, has pre-race anxiety caused tight muscles, worry, and increased heart rate?

These questions are connected with mental and physical energy.

They describe symptoms of too much physical (increased heart rate, rapid breathing) and mental energy (worry, negativity, r acing thoughts) or too little physical (tired, lethargic) and mental energy (mentally flat, unmotivated).

Here are several tactics to control your physical and mental aspects that will help enhance your athletic performance.

Know What Affects Your Energy And Arousal

To manage your physical and mental energy, it’s important to increase your awareness of the things that affect your energy levels and to take the necessary action to manage both the internal or external factors.

Take a few minutes and identify things that deplete your energy—other athletes often mention lack of sleep, poor diet, stress, negativity, and lack of purpose as factors that sap energy.

Now try to identify things that refuel your energy—things like maintaining a positive mood, remembering a great race/ workout, music, a balanced diet, training goals, and being with friends.

You need to take specific steps to control the “depleting” factors you came up with and focus on the factors that “refuel” your energy level.  By working to better manage both these internal and external influences you will be able to control your energy/ arousal levels and reach peak athletic performance

Use Specific Skills to Activate and Relax

You must arm yourself with the mental strength skills and strategies that can be used to successfully raise or lower your physical and mental aspects (energy levels) so that you can activate and relax yourself in an instant.

The above examples are just some tactics found to be helpful in managing athlete arousal/ energy. Practice these to determine which ones will be most effective for you and add your own to the mix.

As with all the mental strength skills, recognize that arousal/ energy management is a skill that, with practice and patience, can be learned and developed. By making a commitment to work on some of these skills you can begin to take control of you physical and mental energy.