Sport psychology, as indicated by the name, is a science that is focused on the factors that affect an athlete’s performance and on how different sports influence an individual. In short, it’s the study of the bidirectional connection that exists between sports and a person’s mind, emotions, behaviors and personality.

Sport psychology has a history of over one hundred years, but it’s only recently when the studies and research became more organized and the science itself became more well-known and popular. Nowadays sport psychology is becoming increasingly recognized and practiced more widely.

Sport psychologists might work doing research and developing different studies to figure out how different variables influence different outcomes in sports. For example, they might study if listening to music during workouts helps the athlete achieve better results in practice.

Many sport psychologists work directly with athletes, helping them overcome a problem or improve their performance. Others work together with coaches to design the best possible training programs or see which factors can be changed to ensure the athlete is able to get to new heights. There are also sport psychologists who work in other settings, helping people become interested in sports, committed to a lifestyle change or with children who are starting to get involved in sports.

Sport psychologists do a lot of practical work with athletes. Here are a few ways in which sport psychologists can help athletes in their performance.

Firstly, they can help an athlete get better results by offering them mental strategies that improve focus, control and relaxation. Sport psychologists can use techniques like visualization, that involves mentally picturing a performance or a series of steps in order to improve, and relaxation techniques that can help the athlete achieve a better focus and a deeper relaxation, helping them be less tense and be more in touch with their bodies. Sports psychologists can also help athletes have more control over what they do and how they do it, as well as more awareness of their movements, their body and their thinking process.

Sport psychologists also can help with the pressure. They can work with an athlete who is experience performance anxiety or who deals with the pressure through aggressive behaviors and help them develop new, healthier alternatives to cope with the stress. They can also work with an athlete’s mindset to help them change it to a more positive one. For example, if an athlete is oriented exclusively to win, without considering their learning or other factors, this could be detrimental to their performance, as the focus needs to be on what they do. A sport psychologist could help change the mindset to one that will give the athlete more chances to win.

A sport psychologist can also help an athlete who has experienced an injury. They can help adjusting and dealing with the psychological, as well as with the physical aspects of the injury. They can also help the athlete stick to a rehabilitation regime and not over- or under-exercise. If the athlete has suffered some long-lasting damage or been sidelined, sports psychology can also help dealing with the consequences.

Sport psychology can help athletes deal with both losing and winning. Losing is a blow to self-confidence and many people need help overcoming the fear of losing or the frustration of it. However, some have a fear of winning, related to different psychological factors. In both cases, sport psychology can offer a way to cope and overcome these problems.

Even individuals who don’t practice sports professionally or who engage in other activities can benefit from sport psychology, because it offers different strategies that can be applied in other fields. Sport psychology can be used to get a child or an adult interested in sports and committed to certain levels of physical activity.

In conclusion, sport psychology is a popular and growing science. It can help professional athletes with many challenges, like improving performance, dealing with winning and losing, coping with the pressure and dealing with an injury. People who are not professional athletes, but practice sports, and those who engage in different activities, like other hobbies, can also benefit from strategies used in sports psychologies and the findings that studies within this branch have discovered.