Emotional Intelligence In Sport, How Does It Help Us?

The Psychology of sport and physical activity is a branch of psychology. Study our psychic processes and our behavior during sports activity. This applied science seeks to know and optimize the internal conditions of the athlete.

Through the Psychology of sport and physical activity, an attempt is made to express the physical, technical and tactical potential acquired in the preparation process. Thus, researchers study the different psychological processes that are influencing the behavior of athletes.

These processes refer to concepts such as motivation, emotional processes and their influence on the performance of athletes. Different aspects related to the intervention of psychology in performance, initiation and health sports are also studied.

In this way, the sports psychologist helps the competitor to control stress. And it is that stress produces an emotional and behavioral disorganization that can affect their performance.

It is from 1995, with the appearance of the work Emotional Intelligence , by Goleman, when the study of emotional intelligence in different media, both scientific and non-scientific, began and expanded. From there there was an increase in social and scientific interest in emotional processes. However, it will not appear in the sports context until 2001, when the first studies begin to appear. Thus, it  is from 2009 when these studies begin in a more important way.

What do we understand by emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is another way of understanding intelligence. With it, we go beyond the cognitive aspects, such as memory and the ability to solve problems.

The concept of emotional intelligence is, above all, our ability to effectively address others and ourselves. But, not only that, it also implies connecting with our emotions, managing them, motivating ourselves, stopping certain impulses, overcoming frustrations … Daniel Goleman, the guru of emotional intelligence, explains that within his focus on it there are four basic dimensions that the vertebrate:

• The first is self-awareness. It refers to our ability to understand what we feel and to always be connected to our values, to our essence.

• The second aspect is self-motivation and our ability to orient ourselves towards our goals, to recover from setbacks, to manage stress.
• The third dimension has to do with social awareness and our empathy.
• The fourth link is undoubtedly the philosopher’s stone of Emotional Intelligence: our ability to relate, to communicate, to reach agreements, to connect positively and respectfully with others.

Emotional intelligence in sport

In sport, the demands and demands of competition are increasing, the differences are increasingly marked by factors that are not directly derived from the physical training itself, such as nutrition or psychology itself. Thus, sports psychology is responsible for analyzing, studying and observing the behaviors, reactions and emotional responses of the individual or team.

To do this, you must positively “control” your emotions or redirect them so that they do not negatively influence the sporting gesture. And why emotional intelligence? Because in sport you have to make quick and appropriate decisions.

Emotional intelligence is of great interest to the sports community. The intrapersonal and interpersonal elements have a direct application. Self-knowledge, self-regulation of emotions, self-motivation, social skills and empathy are tools that every athlete uses to a greater or lesser extent.

Many of the techniques of relaxation, concentration, visualization, etc. are shared. Increasingly, clubs, federations and coaches are hiring professionals to implement these techniques. In this way, they aim to improve the performance of athletes.

Many of the tools shared by emotional intelligence and sport have one main characteristic. This characteristic is that it is tremendously practical, especially for application in daily life.

The importance of exercising control over emotions

The importance of the fact that an athlete can exercise control over their emotions, in relation to sports practice, is evidenced in various studies. Hanin and Sirja (1995) found that emotions in relation to sporting success present individual optimal zones.

However, at the group level the same does not happen. Each athlete reacts in a different way to stress, requiring a certain degree of negative or positive emotions that give them an optimal performance point in a game situation.

The study of emotional intelligence and sport, however, has been scarce. This is striking if we take into account the importance that this process has in other areas, such as education or work in other professions. However, what the few but growing studies tell us on the subject is that emotional intelligence is very important for execution.

Benefits of emotional intelligence in sport

Emotional intelligence in sports can lead to fewer dropouts, increased sports performance, and fewer dropouts. On the other hand, emotional intelligence is a construct closely related to personality that acts as a determining factor when the athlete is in pressure situations.

Faced with these pressure situations, the athlete has to make decisions in tenths of a second, which generates large peaks of stress. Therefore, it is necessary for any athlete, especially the elite, to be trained at this level. Furthermore, the benefits of emotional intelligence in sport can be summarized as follows:

• On an emotional level. It improves the orientation towards the achievement of objectives, competitiveness, the identification of sport and personal values, self-worth, teamwork, leadership, empathy, control of negative reactions and emotions, among others.
• Physical level. It helps to know how to organize oneself, not to obsess over sports, to have moments of rest, to manage time better and to create proper eating habits.
• On a social level. Improve the relationship with the team, coaches, trainers, physiotherapists etc.
• On a rational level. It helps to learn how the game works, technical and tactical aspects.

As we can see, the benefits of emotional intelligence in sport are extensive, although the body of research that supports them is not yet very dense. However, this number is increasing and, as we say, in sports, a world where a second or a few centimeters can separate the winner from the loser, the small-big factors, such as emotional intelligence, have a great importance.