Dr. Sc. Psych., Professor O.I. Shcherbakova¹
Dr. Sc. Tech., Professor A.K. Chernykh²
PhD, Associate Professor D.A. Balakhanova¹
PhD, Associate Professor V.O. Midova^1
1Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow
²St. Petersburg Military Institute of National Guard Troops of the Russian Federation, St. Petersburg

Keywords: stress, stressors, mental conditioning, emotionality control, behavioral control tools.

Background. Academic sports are rather emotional, intensive and imply stressful interpersonal communication environments, i.e. associated with highly intensive cognitive, emotional and communication pressures that need to be countered by due mental conditioning and stress coping skills. Despite the fact that manifestations of stress sensitivity are rather individual in most cases, there are quite a few indications of a high exposure to stressors including: poor attention focusing ability; repeated silly errors; sagging memorizing abilities; mounting fatigue; faster speaking rates; pains in the back, head and stomach when no disease is diagnosed; excessive affectivity; no satisfaction from any activity etc. (N.A. Cheremisina, 2012).

Stress control process is normally designed to include the following three strategies: stress prevention; stress mitigation; and stress coping ones. Athletes need to be knowledgeable and skillful in these strategies, with a special emphasis on the most efficient relaxation and behavioral control tools.

Objective of the study was to analyze mental statuses of academic atheltets and theoretically substantiate practical stress control recommendations and model applicable in the academic sports system.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was performed at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. Sampled for the study purposes were 24 academic athletes who were tested by the M. Zavizion and P. Legeron ‘Your Stress Level and Type’ Test (2017).

Study findings and discussion. Based on the test data and analyses, 46% of the sample (n=11) was diagnosed with different and variable stress conditions: see Table 1 and 2 hereunder.

Table 1. Stresses diagnosed in the subsample

Table 2. Types of stress in respondents

Based on the test data, most of the stress-exposed subsample was diagnosed with mid-level stresses of dominating emotional type.

Practical recommendations The stress prevention, mitigation and coping strategies recommended for academic athletes may be mastered in practical psychological stress-control training course “Stress-free self-control” that offers a set of special exercises to build up due stress tolerance and individual mental resource in the athletes, including, for example:

• Walking Style, with every trainee offered to opt for some emotion or mental status and express it as vivid as possible by walking in front of the class so that everybody could guess what it means. Every trainee will be given 3-4 attempts conditional on a new mental status being chosen every time.
• Change Your Heart Rate, with every trainee requested to fix own HR, then close up their eyes, relax and imagine the most joyful, fearful and offensive situations in the personal life experience, measuring HR every time and checking its variations versus other mental statuses. The practice may be followed by the group averages being computed for every model situation. Given hereunder are the examples of the stress coping practices:
• Air balloon, a relaxing respiration control exercise. Imagine that you’ve got an air balloon in your stomach. Then slowly inhale concentrating on how it grows... Now it has grown big and light. When you feel that you cannot fill it anymore, hold your breath, count slowly to five; and then calmly and slowly exhale. Repeat the sequence 5-6 times, then slowly open up your eyes and sit quietly for 1-2min. Share your sensations with the classmates.
• Exert yourself to relax, one of the tension-relaxation exercises governed by the following key rule: hold maximal tension for 15-20 seconds and then relax. Make a fist as tense as possible; bend your arms in front of you, make fists and flex your biceps; stand legs apart and flex your leg and dorsal muscles etc.

Conclusion. Students are recommended to master the modern stress control and coping strategies and build up own mental resource in the mental conditioning course of our design with a set of special exercises. Timely stress prevention and detection is critical for success in the stress coping training process, with due stress control knowledge and skills forming a sound basis for competitive accomplishments in the academic sports. 

References

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Abstract

The study gives a special priority to the still underexplored issues of stress tolerance and stressors in the modern academic sports in the context of the relevant psychological theory and practices, for the mental conditioning purposes. It is common knowledge today that the stress test, prevention and mitigation issues are critically important for success in sports on the whole and emotionally intensive sport disciplines in particular with their stressful interpersonal communication environments. A special priority shall be given to the early stress detecting tests with a variety of stress test methods and tools to rate individual stress exposures and apply, on a timely basis, the most efficient stress mitigation, control and tolerance building policies and practices. Subject to the stress typing and rating tests under the study was a group of academic athletes, with tests of a stress control model of the authors’ own design including the special stress control and mitigation practices to efficiently build up the individual stress tolerance.