A comprehensive guide to tournament anxiety

THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO TOURNAMENT ANXIETY

By Benjamin “Luigikid” Tolan

INTRODUCTION:

Hi, my name is Benjamin Tolan. You may know me as Luigikid or SSBM T | Luigikid from Southern California. I have been playing Smash for around 3 ½ years now and am currently (Sept 7th, 2017) ranked #15 in SoCal. I have been dealing with anxiety during tournaments for nearly 8 months. I have since quit to better maintain my anxiety levels. PHATTY DISCLAIMER: I am in no way a psychologist, I haven’t even taken High School Psychology, so if you feel like your anxiety and stress is bad enough, or are having severely negative thoughts, contact a psychiatrist or psychologist about your issues. If you have localized anxiety when playing in tournament, that is it doesn’t seep into your everyday life but rather centers itself around playing Smash Brothers competitively, this guide could help you. I have experience not only as a “top” player but as someone who literally white-knuckled his way through at least ~15 best of 5’s against top players while fighting against possible panic. I feel I have legitimate grounds of which to speak on this topic.



PART 1: HOW DO I BREATHE?

Breathing comes up often when talking about anxiety, and for good reason! You can calm your nerves, mind, and body down with simple breathing techniques. Or, at least they appear simple. I practice 5-4-7 breathing which means 5 seconds inhaling, 4 seconds holding your breath, and 7 seconds breathing out. Many people find that, at first, they can’t exhale nearly 7 seconds without discomfort. They usually run out of breath to exhale after around 4-5 seconds. Why is that? Well your lungs typically only use around 70% of their inflation and deflation when normally breathing. Imagine a water bottle. When is it empty, it still maintains its water-bottle shape. But when you crush the air out, completely, it’s a shriveled-up piece of plastic. Your lungs can do that as well! Using your muscles around your lungs you can completely deflate your lungs, 0%, and inflate them, 100%. Try it! You can now reach 7 seconds out using your auxiliary muscles around your ribs/lungs.

Now, we will attempt an exercise. It is called Breathing until you are dizzy. Not exactly the most elegant name, but it is indeed apt. Try breathing in and out, using those extra muscles, until you are literally light-headed and dizzy. You will notice afterwards, hopefully, that your breath is naturally much longer in and out than it was before.

As we become anxious, we start to breath much more shallowly. We use somewhere between 10-30% of our normal lung capacity, depending on the level of anxiety. This is an evolutionary vestige which humans have kept. Imagine you are a cave-man, and you see a band of other possibly aggressive cavemen. They have food and you haven’t eaten in several days. Your cro-magnon brain will actually start to reason whether it is worth it to either make friends and share food, sneakily steal food, or run away. As you sit behind the tree looking upon the other cavemen, your breath will become shorter and shorter, and eventually it will dip too low and cause a panic attack. The purpose of this is to activate your “Flight or Fight” response, which generally means running away. Running away was, after all, the safest option in that scenario. If you can realize that your breath is becoming shallow, try 5-4-7 breathing, or if your anxiety is getting to a moderate or severe level, try the Breathing Until you are Dizzy trick. It will “reset” your breathing patterns, so to speak, to a more healthy and fuller level.

Now why are we talking about breathing so much? Shouldn’t it just end at deep breathing? Well, not quite. It’s very important to fully breathe out, which many people don’t do. Why? To answer that question we have to get fucking

S C I E N T I F I C

Animals of all kinds, including humans, are constantly attempting to reach HOMEOSTASIS. Homeostasis would mean that all the levels of substances in your blood are properly regulated, you have optimal levels of iron, sodium, glucose, etc. Basically, if the human is made up of ingredients, homeostatic processes will occur to regulate those ingredients so they exactly follow the recipe book. You don’t want too much sodium, or too little iron. The same goes for Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide. Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. When the breath becomes shallow, humans can still live. Why? Because we have special HOMEOSTATIC receptors in our blood and lungs that go, “OOOOO oxygen, I want that” when you breathe in. Therefore, even with shallow breathing, we don’t pass out from lack of oxygen. However, when you shallowly breathe in AND OUT, you literally start to overdose on carbon dioxide. Why? Because air molecules have no homeostatic receptors like we do, they’re just molecules. So nothing is pulling the Carbon Dioxide out of you, you need to FULLY BREATHE OUT to 0% to get it all out. Now, normally this isn’t an issue when normally breathing, but under anxiety you want to keep that in check.



Compile all I’ve taught you about breathing and use it to your advantage. It may help mid-set when you need to calm your nerves between stocks.



PART 2: TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY, PLEASE

There are physical precautions we can take to limit anxiety during tournament:

1) GET ENOUGH SLEEP. Being low on sleep can aggravate anxiety symptoms.

2) GET ENOUGH FOOD. One of the reasons that you can become anxious is due to low blood sugar. Make sure you get enough food around an HOUR before you have to play. You don’t want to be lethargic from eating, but you want the energy from the food as well. Low blood sugar creates anxiety and increases heartrate almost linearly because of vestigial evolutionary needs. Humans needed to be able to hunt and gather while hungry, so when your blood sugar gets low and you become hungry, adrenaline is released and heartrate is accelerated so that you can track that deer or climb that tree to grab the fruit. This is all fine and dandy but we don’t live in the dirt and mud anymore so make sure you eat properly to avoid these symptoms. The last thing and anxious person needs is more adrenaline. Try to avoid fast-food, and please PLEASE stay away from caffeine if you indeed suffer from anxiety issues.

3) GET ENOUGH WATER. Stay hydrated. It will make you feel better overall.

4) STAY AWAY FROM UPPERS. This includes caffeinated beverages, energy drinks, cocaine, maybe ecstasy, and Adderall (amphetamines.) These will only serve to aggravate your symptoms.

5) FOR SOME (YOU’LL KNOW WHO YOU ARE), AVOID MARIJUANA. Some people are sensitive to marijuana and it can cause anxiety and even sometimes panic attacks. If you are in this camp do not smoke before tournaments, it can put you in a bad place.

6) DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR SMALL BREATHERS. Most local TO’s will allow you small breaks not only between sets but even between matches. People are more understanding than you may give them credit for. Keep the breaks small though. I also can’t speak for larger tournaments such as regionals, majors, or supermajors. You would have to ask the TO’s specifically in those cases.

That’s it for the body.



PART 3: TOURNAMENT MINDSET AND ACHIEVING FLOW

There are two crippling fears that can cause anxiety during your matches.



FEAR ONE: THE FEAR OF LOSING

This is the more common fear. When playing, you are worried that you will lose. I think most competitors have this issue. To better your anxiety you have to get past the mental barrier of the “result” and focus more on the “betterment” of your play. If you find your mind wandering to the thought, “I hope I don’t lose this” or “This guy is way worse than me it will look bad if I lose” or some similar thought, try something that you’ve been working on in practice in-game, or look at the opponent and try to detect a pattern, anything you can find to get your mind back in the game. Doing this consistently, that is the act of focusing 100% of your attention on the game itself, no matter the stock count, I will call FLOW.

FEAR TWO: THE FEAR OF SUCCESS

This is the lesser common fear. When playing, some will start to win and begin to fret about it. They will literally come across thoughts such as, “Oh man I could actually win this.” This is the fear that led to one of the top 10 anime deaths:

Luigikid vs. Shroomed

During the 3rd match I pulled ahead and began to think, “I could beat Shroomed.” I cared less about beating Dajuan, in honesty, and more about what this win could mean for Luigi. My greater desire in smash is to prove that Luigi is top 5 in the game and Puff is mid-tier trash. To beat the top 10 in a disadvantageous matchup would have meant a lot for not only me as a player but also for Luigi as a character. I crumbled. Don’t let this happen to you! Attempt to stay in the game using the same techniques to achieve FLOW.



If you can learn to achieve Flow, to only think about the game and only look at your opponent’s stock and percent for combo or DI purposes rather than to check the status of the game itself, you can get past these fears. Combine taking care of your body, breathing, and Flow to obtain an IRON MENTALITY.



PART 4: MEDICATIONS AND SUPPLEMENTS

In terms of supplements, I recommend Magnesium. It’s over the counter, buy it and mix in 2 teaspoons the day before a tournament. It can help anxiety and stress, even if slightly.



In terms of Medication there are two main ones that I have used that can help.



1) BETA BLOCKERS: Beta Blockers such as Propranolol can regulate the heart and blood flow, leading to lower heartrate and reduced adrenaline. It is an extremely common performance drug used by public speakers and stage actors. Talk to your doctor about the possibility of its use.



2) SEDATIVES: Sedatives such as Valium, Ativan, or Clonazepam can aid in anxiety, although they are a little more brute force. They can also tire you out, hence the name ‘sedative’, which can lead to worse decision-making and therefore worse play. To get these prescribed you may be able to explain that you have anxiety during tournament play, but in all honestly you will probably only obtain them legally if you have longstanding anxiety issues or depression.







CONCLUSION:

Remember that therapy can help. Breathe. Eat and sleep well. Maintain flow. Become stronger.



Hope this helps, anxiety is a tough nut but you aren’t alone.









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