Train your nerves

TRAINING your nerves is perhaps what most people associate with sport psychology. To be successful, we must learn to embrace nerves as part of the competition experience, and harness the energy they give us. To do so, we need to combine the previous “Fundamentals of Mental Fitness” (see box, above right) together, so I hope you’ve been practising!

There is a difference between training your nerves and merely coping with nerves.

Coping is reactive, it encourages us to avoid pressure and work on suppressing the negative effects of our nervous energy. It relies on coping strategies that are unique to competition because we generally don’t need them in training.

Training your nerves is proactive. It invites pressure on your terms and teaches your mind and body to respond positively to it. It therefore allows you to harness your nervous energy, not suppress it,