Resiliency and stress experience among judo and taekwondo athletes

Abstract

Researchers frequently deliberate why some people are resistant to life difficulties whereas others develop negative health effects (physical or psychical). With this respect, the notion of resiliency has been introduced as an attempt to answer this question. The majority of authors, beginning with the creators of this concept [1,2], treat resiliency as a relatively stable disposition of a unit. It is also reported that it is a resource that more often appears as a result of experiencing serious difficulties and threats by a human being, in which the unit displays signs of positive adaptation [3]. According to the interactive model of stress introduced by Cerin, Szabo, Hunt and Williams [4] the functioning of an athlete in a stress situation includes the relationships between the way of the contestant’s appraisal of the competition, his emotional reactions, coping and the sport performance. The conducted research indicated there are relationships between resiliency and all of the mentioned elements. With regards to the experienced reactions, the resilient people declared experiencing more positive emotions before undertaking a stressful task and during its performance. More over, among people with a higher level of resiliency, the physiological arousal of the body that resulted from experiencing negative emotions returned to the initial state more rapidly [5, 6]. The connection of resiliency with the experience of positive emotions influences a more frequent occurrence of appraising stressful situations as challenges and less frequent – in terms of a threat [5]. Such relationships were also revealed in the studies over Olympic champions [7]. Earlier reports indicate that resilient people also choose more effective and situation suited coping strategies owing to which, they are more resistant to stress and experience its less negative consequences [8]. In the research by Yi, Smith and Vitaliano [9], female contestants from the group characterised by a higher resiliency, in comparison to those described as non-resilient, more often applied adaptive stress coping strategies (focusing on the problem, seeking social support, minimizing the threat). The relationships were opposite in case of the inadaptive strategies such like blaming others or avoiding. The results of the earlier research allow to draw a conclusion that athletes engaged in professional sport tend to display a specific method of experiencing strong stress during competitions characteristic to particular disciplines [10,11]. In this respect it seems relevant to consider various circumstances