Sometimes a little stress is a good thing like when you hit the snooze button too many times and now you have no time for a shower or breakfast.  Or when you are on the starting line waiting for the gun to go off.  But then there is that kind of stress that gives you a headache, makes you feel tight and sore all over and keeps you from falling to sleep.  This kind of stress will hurt your performance, cloud your focus and contribute to illness and injury. 

The real issue is not stress itself….but how much stress you have in your life and how you manage it.

We have all learned ways to manage our stress but most of the time our methods don’t help. They just make it worse.   We try to push thoughts about things we need to do out of our heads.  We try to rest.  We try to forget about things.  We try not to think about that event tomorrow.  We try to get rid of stress by eating too much or by being angry or grouchy or by avoiding certain people or things.  We don’t appreciate the good things.  Everything is negative. We get a cold or flu; our head <!--[endif]-->

Stress can be a killer….

Stress can kill our training efforts, our practice sessions, our competition, our grades, our friendships, our bodies, our futures.  Stress saps our energy.  We are exhausted all the time.  If you think about it, you always know when you are stressed.  Your body feels different – tight, sore, out of sorts.  Everything becomes an effort.  You begin to “trash talk” to yourself.  You are not happy.