Overcoming Youth to Excel in Beijing

With the Olympics under way in Beijing, several storylines have already jumped to the forefront of the sports landscape. Team USA basketball is looking to redeem themselves after the debacle in Athens and return to the world dominance they once enjoyed. Michael Phelps is swimming for a record 8 gold medals in a single Olympics. The People’s Republic of China will be showing off their country in spite of protests from around the world on the country’s human rights violations and their relationship with Tibet and Sudan. Every four years, the sports world’s attention turns to sports that most people don’t usually care about which often turns up world-class athletes that are quite young.
This year alone, the US women’s gymnastics team features five teenagers which is often the norm for gymnastics. The favorite for the women’s all-around title is 4’10” 16 year-old American Shawn Johnson. In swimming, 19-year old American Katie Hoff has set several world records this year and has already won a silver and a bronze in the first two days of competition. However, when the pressure of being on the world stage is put on teenagers, it is much more difficult for them to cope with the stresses of competing at the highest level.
At the Athens Olympics in 2004, Hoff who was just 15 at the time became so overcome with emotion before a race that she threw up minutes before the start. The human brain isn’t fully developed as a teenager which may help to explain why teenagers are careless drivers and often make emotional decisions without thinking about the consequences. When teenagers are put under the pressure of the world stage in sporting events, they often have difficulties handling the stress, which is obviously what happened to Hoff in Athens.
Studies have indicated that the human brain does not reach its final structure until a person is in their mid-20s. Also, the area of the brain that tends to be the last to develop is the completion of the frontal cortex which houses an area known as the executive processing area. This area of the brain is responsible for regulating emotional conflicts such as regulating stress levels and dealing with possible failures. These regulations of the stressors inside the brain make it much more difficult for young people to keep their emotions and nerves in check.
Even though some people naturally develop more quickly than others, it is still incredible that some teenagers have accomplished incredible feats in the sports world. As a 19-year old in Athens, Michael Phelps won a record-tying eight medals at one Olympic Games. In 1976, Nadia Comaneci of Romania put together perhaps the best gymnastics performance of all time at the age of 14. In 1998 in Nagano, Tara Lipinski won the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the age of 15. While competing at the top level is not impossible as a teenager, it remains extremely impressive that these young people can handle the pressure of the spotlight and perform at the highest level.

The Psychology Behind Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant

With the NBA Finals under way, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett have illustrated throughout the NBA playoffs why they are so great. Both players are the undeniable leaders of the two best teams in the NBA this year. However, there is one very noticeable difference between the two players. Although both contain the fire within to will their team to victory, Garnett is much more boisterous on the court. Although you often see Bryant getting after his teammates and referees, he is not afraid to joke with opponents on the court. Garnett on the other hand continues to grimace throughout the entire game, as if the outcome of the game depends on how much his yells and punches himself in the face.

Why are these two players so different in their mannerisms? It simply comes down to the way they handle the pressure of the situation in their own way. When people get nervous, they tend to have quirks that help them through their nervousness. Before a big presentation, people often tend to yawn way more often than they normally would. Despite having three cups of coffee and a Red Bull, the pressure of the situation forces the brain to require more oxygen than normal; this creates a need to yawn. This is the neural response to pressure and stress that many people feel.

With that in mind, every person deals with stress in their own way. For Garnett, his way of dealing with the stress of an NBA game is to let out all of his emotions through talking trash to opponents and yelling towards the crowd. There are three ways a person can react to stress. The first of which actually helps the person deal with the demands they are facing. This phenomenon is known as eustress where people learn to adapt to the pressure of the situation and use different means such as adrenaline to help them cope with the situation. The other two ways people deal with stress is to either escape the situation or to deal with the situation in an adverse manner.

To get to a state of eustress, Garnett uses outward emotion to fend off the fear that he deals with during the course of the game. This helps him deal with pressure in a distinct way. First, when a person feels a perceived stressor in their environment, hormones are released from the pituitary gland and into the bloodstream to counteract the stressor. This is usually felt through adrenaline and must be released in order for a person’s mental state to get back to normal. This is why Garnett lets his emotions go during the course of the game. It is his body’s neural response to the pressure of the situation.
If that is the case, then why does Kobe Bryant appear so cool during the course of a game? Although he lets his emotions out, it isn’t nearly as outward as that of Garnett. It is simply another way of dealing with the pressure. Instead of releasing his stress hormones through adrenaline like that of Garnett, Bryant uses his mind to deal with the stressors that are in the environment. The innate health model of stress shows that people attempt to get into a state of mind that releases the hormones caused by stress through the means of a quiet mind. Instead of releasing everything outwardly, Bryant channels his fears through a thought process that determines his response to pressure.
Despite the differences, both players have had great success with each type of reaction to their stressful environment. As a person deals with acute stress more throughout their life, they learn techniques that allow them to adapt to the situation. By finding the key to relaxing your stress agent, people can become more productive and healthier. The key is to not be afraid to try new strategies when you feel a stressful agent presenting itself. This could lead to the breakthrough of overcoming pressure for you like the NBA greats mentioned above.