Ryan NorrisSuppose you are apart of a team that is about to enter the final, decision-wining game of the season. The sudden buzzing of the clocks announces the debut of a fight to victory. Grinding up every ounce of fury, you step onto that field trickled by the rewarding thoughts of success. While attempting to keep composure, the aroma of that cold sizzling beer allied to the imaginary cheers of a dressed-to-a-minimum flock of girls seize your every move. Panic. What if we lose?
Much the same way, non-athletic students are often subject to equal exposure to pressure over success. Though standing outside the boundaries of a field, students dedication to meet deadlines, for example, can amount to equal levels of stress. As we all may have experienced once before, cramming the night before to complete a paper most often amounts to an unsatisfactory outcome.
According to award wining sports columnist Sally Jenkins, the brain robs ones muscles of the energy to function, whether you are fighting to win that game or sitting at your desk typing that paper. The fact of the matter is how successful you are at turning pressure into a positive outcome.
As a breed set apart, athletes have been shown to demonstrate superior control as far as applying both composure and focus to their main objective. As Jenkins so clearly conveys, the laziest of pro athletes work much harder than the average person as a means of getting better. Similarly, the weakest of players shows more bravery when confronting a more robust adversary.
Regardless of such, one cannot imply that athletes are better than any other being. For instance, in the context of entering that final, decision-wining game, it would be normal for a player to undergo both anxiety and threat. What sets them apart from other scholars is their ability to better control fear under strenuous situations and thus attain a more positive outcome.
According to Justin Walsh, a basketball player for the junior varsity and varsity team, stress is often turned into adrenaline prior to the start of the game, “There’s so little time during the game and so much to accomplish that you really can’t keep thinking about how pressured you may be. The key is to prepare yourself mentally before the game and give it all you have on the court.” Furthermore, Walsh added that knowing you did not do your best will amount to stress after the game.
In the context of a typical, non-athletic scholar, learnt behaviors of this nature don’t necessarily take part as a reliable source for motivation. Take the example of a student working all night to meet a deadline. Under such a pressure, physical reactions associated with anxiety and pressure will lead to forms of paralysis, similar to entering a blank, tunnel-like mindset.
Predictably, such lack of control over pressure will heighten chances for failure and underperformance. So why not “train” for schoolwork, as an athlete would for a game? Athletic dedication for success and intense training can serve as an instrumental means for reformatting ones flimsy work habits into that of a trained, aggressive student.
Posted to the web by Ryan Norris
