Imagine you're an Olympic surfer, you're in the final, and your competitor just caught a barrel that would be enough to make Mick Fanning sweat. With two minutes left and no more waves on the horizon, the pressure begins to mount. Cue the negative self-talk, poor focus and anxiety that inevitably leads to your downfall.
The damaging impact of these emotions could soon be a thing of the past for our professional athletes, thanks to a major research collaboration about to get underway between the University of New England (UNE) and the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).
The research team, which includes UNE Associate Professor in Biomedical Science Phillip Fourie (project lead), UNE Professor Christian Cook, Dr Rosie Stanimirovic from the AIS and UNE Post-Doctoral fellow Gemma Whelan, will seek to better understand stress responses in Olympic athletes, and what management strategies could be implemented to improve the performance of our favourite sporting stars.
Individuals are unique, but there are 'fingerprints' of stress physiologically and psychologically that we are seeking to detail.
"Many athletes are unable to perform to their best at important competitions because of excessive stress," says A/Prof Fourie.
"This research will identify real-time stress reactions and responses in elite athletes. Through analysing this data, we can understand how the stress response varies from person-to-person and how an increase in stress hormones could be used in a positive way to improve overall performance."
Drawing on a previous Australian Sports Commission (ASC) funded research collaboration led by A/Prof Fourie, the twelve-month project will involve the design and implementation of new sensor technology that will gauge the amount of stress experienced during exercise. This will shed light on how the brain regulates stress hormones when faced with challenging competitive conditions.
"Individuals are unique, but there are 'fingerprints' of stress physiologically and psychologically that we are seeking to detail," A/Prof Fourie says.
"The understanding of stress in general is in its infancy because of lack of data measuring stress when humans are moving and performing. Through this research, we are building the framework to measure and understand stress during movement, which will add foundational studies and new methods of measurement."
Not only will the partnership benefit the Australian professional sporting community, but it will have positive impacts on UNE's research and teaching potential in this space.
It enables longer term partnerships for UNE in this area, and opens up innovative new research that may support other off-spins and grants that could facilitate further work into things such as body sensors.
"Very few universities receive funding from the Australian Sports Commission, so this partnership is very significant," says A/Prof Fourie.
"It enables longer term partnerships for UNE in this area, and opens up innovative new research that may support other off-spins and grants that could facilitate further work into things such as body sensors.
"Paired with the major collaboration underway between UNE and the Australian Department of Defence investigating how stress impacts Australian soldiers, the AIS/ASC grant forms the backbone of constructing our Human Physiology and Performance Group. Not to mention, UNE's involvement in these projects will have significant flow-on effects for the teaching and development of our early-career scientists."
