Beyond the Mind: How Tuning Into Your Body Can Relieve Stress in Sport
- veldiesp
- Nov 3
- 5 min read
You’ve probably heard the advice: “Just calm down.” Lovely idea except your heart is racing, your hands are sweating, and your brain’s doing the 100m freestyle.
Athletes spend hours training their bodies and minds to perform, but often forget that the body is part of the mind. When stress hits, it doesn’t always start with a thought; it can also start with a physiological (i.e., body) signal. And if you can learn to tune into those signals early, you can stop anxiety from hijacking your game before it begins.
When the Body Fuels Anxiety
Let’s start with the facts (and they’re not small ones). A 2025 survey of varsity student-athletes found that 64.5% reported elevated anxiety symptoms (Frontiers, 2025). Among endurance athletes, things aren’t much better... a Guardian report found that 1 in 4 multi-marathoners experience clinically significant mental-health symptoms.
So yes... sport can be stressful. (Shocking, I know.)
But this stress doesn’t appear out of thin air. It’s rooted in the nervous system i.e., that built-in alarm designed to keep you alive, not necessarily to help you perform at your best.
Here’s what that alarm looks like in real life:
Heart pounding like you’ve just sprinted up the stairs while getting chased by your sibling.
Shoulders creeping up towards your ears.
Forgetting how to breathe like a normal human.
Hands shaking as if you're about to read a speech to a room full of very serious people.
These "quirks" are your body’s way of shouting, “Hey, something big and important is happening!”
The problem is, the mind often misinterprets these signals as danger, even when the “danger” is literally just kicking a ball into a goal. And then we ✨spiral✨:
body tension → anxious thoughts → more tension → more anxious thoughts. (YAY!)
So if the body helped start the loop, it makes sense to use the body to break it. This is where Progressive Muscle Relaxation can come into play.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation: The Body’s Reset Button
If you’ve ever told yourself to “just relax” and your muscles responded with a firm “absolutely not”, Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is your new best friend :)
PMR was developed almost a century ago by Dr. Edmund Jacobson and later adapted for athletes. It works by deliberately tensing and releasing muscle groups to teach your body the difference between tension and calm (because apparently we sometimes forget how to do this?)
Here’s how it works:
Find a quiet spot (or just stick in your headphones and pretend it’s quiet).
Start at your feet: tense the muscles for 5 seconds, then release for 10.
Move slowly upwards: calves, thighs, stomach, shoulders, arms, face (my personal favourite)
Pay attention to the sensations as you let go. That heavy, loose feeling is your parasympathetic nervous system (the one that calms you down) clocking in for duty.
Why it’s effective: You’re essentially sending your brain a “safety signal.” When the body relaxes, the nervous system realises there’s no threat and stops being delusional which then calms the thoughts that were feeding the anxiety in the first place.
Regular PMR helps athletes spot tension before it builds up. Over time, you start catching the first signs - tight jaw, shallow breath - and can intervene early and prevent spiralling into a deep pit of "I'm gonna die if I don't score this goal".
Body Awareness: Your Built-In Early Warning System
Think of body awareness as your own internal radar. It picks up micro-signals before your mind even notices them.
A tight stomach before a competition. A clenched fist in a tough conversation with a coach.That little breath you forget to take during a high-stakes moment.
These signals are information. They tell you that pressure is rising. And once you start noticing them, you can respond before anxiety takes the wheel and drives you into the ditch.
Try this:
During warm-up or downtime, take a quick body scan:
Check in from head to toe.
Notice where you’re tense, heavy, jittery, or calm.
Don’t judge it (no one likes to be judged!) just notice it.
Then, choose a micro-reset: one slow exhale, a shoulder roll, or a mini PMR for a specific area.
It’s like catching the rain before it becomes a storm. Or noticing the change in your mothers voice before uses your full name.
Over time, this awareness helps you learn your personal stress signature i.e., the small cues that appear before you feel “anxious.” Once you know them, you can manage stress from the first sigh rather than the full shout.
From “Mind Over Matter” to “Mind is Matter”
Sport psychology isn’t about separating "mind" and "body" it’s about syncing them together or rather, realising that they're literally part of the same system so can't be separated. Your thoughts, emotions, and physiology are constantly in conversation with each other, yapping away like theres no tomorrow. And when one of them starts shouting, the others follow.
By training both body awareness and other mental skills like self-talk and acceptance, you create a flexible system that can handle pressure without collapsing under it.
So next time you feel your heart pounding before a match, don’t rush to fight it. Instead, pause and ask:
“What’s my body trying to tell me right now?”
Chances are, it’s saying something simple like, “This matters to me.”
And that’s not a "threat". That’s motivation.
If you want to take something practical away from this blog post. Here's something I challenge you to try:
Try This Week
Mini PMR before training - Two minutes is enough. Start small: tense and relax your shoulders and jaw before drills.
Body scan after games - Notice tension patterns. Ask yourself: Where am I holding stress? What does that tell me about my week?
Shift your interpretation - A racing heart doesn’t always mean panic. Sometimes it’s just excitement in dressed in a fancy cloak as disguise.
Final Thought
Anxiety in sport is normal! It doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you! It literally just means your body is doing its job a little too enthusiastically.
So, instead of trying to shut your body up and telling it to "calm down", try listening to it.
When you learn its language, stress becomes less of a saboteur and more of a signal.
Because ultimately, tuning into your body isn’t just how you manage stress, it’s how you stay connected to the thing that got you here in the first place: your love for the sport.
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