Controlling Anxiety With Acceptance & Commitment

Anxiety is part and parcel of performing on the field of play for a great many referees and being able to manage your anxiety can really help you deliver games with a greater level of success. Under pressure, some officials can produce a ‘clutch’ performance where they actually perform better, however for others they can be overcome with nerves or anxiety. With my experience of working with referees to help them manage their anxiety, this Third Team Blog aims to offer some tips to help you manage your anxiety too.

Anxiety is a state comprising of both physical and psychological symptoms due to feeling apprehensive in relation to a perceived threat. Anxiety may differ from situation to situation and each individual may experience things slightly differently. For example, one official I worked with couldn’t get themselves onto the field of play without feeling like passing out, while another referee I worked with would be physically sick just before heading down the tunnel to blow the first whistle. Typically anxiety is split into trait anxiety, which is linked to a person’s personality, or state anxiety, which is a temporary feeling of anxiety experienced in specific situations.

It is natural when experiencing anxiety to want to get rid of the feelings because they are unpleasant, therefore people can seek solutions to avoid feeling like that. If the anxiety becomes extreme an official may even get to the point where the only way to not feel like that is to stop being available for appointments or even hang up their whistles for good. This is a solution, however the referee would be moving away from what’s most important to them (officiating). Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help a referee manage their anxiety and teach them ways to keep the feeling, sensations and thoughts at a controlled level while living to their true values. The actual solution to their anxiety is to give up their current solution. For example, an official may start to avoid training sessions or matchdays in order to avoid anxiety. A more positive solution would be to accept anxiety, embrace it and learn ways of living with it.

ACT is based around a hexa-flex framework which helps to create more ‘psychological flexibility’ for the referee. The six elements are acceptance, cognitive diffusion, self as context, committed action, values and contact with the present moment. If an official experiences anxious thoughts while out in the middle, they can learn to ‘defuse’ from these which helps to reduce the impact. This means that rather than ‘hooking’ onto an anxious thought, you actually allow the thoughts in your mind to come and go like clouds come and go in the sky, freeing up your mental space. Some referees find that this is a better way of dealing with anxious thoughts rather than spending time analysing them. This observing of your thoughts helps create some distance and enables psychological flexibility, so that you don’t feel the same anxiety as you would normally (cognitive defusion).

Another tool in ACT is known as the over enthusiastic assistant (create a name for yours e.g. Bryn West), where your assistant is constantly passing you ‘memos’ all day (memos are thoughts). Your assistant may send you a memo saying ‘What if you perform badly today and everyone’s watching’ or ‘you are not as good as your colleague’. ACT suggests that you say thank you to your brain for sending you this because the brain’s main job is to keep you alive! However, you accept the ‘thought’ memo and place it to one side. Occasionally, the over enthusiastic assistant may send a good memo and say something positive. This freedom to choose which memos to pay attention to also helps to create psychological flexibility.

Mindfulness is another aspect of ACT, which is highly beneficial to help officials stay in the present moment more, without thinking about the past or the future. An app may be a good place to start because there are ones with guided mindfulness, which teaches you the basics.

I hope I’ve shared some insight into tools I have used in ACT for referees, which have produced some excellent results in a short space of time. The great thing about ACT is that it moves you towards living your core values, while accepting your thoughts, feelings and sensations.

At The Third Team I work individually and in collaboration with different professionals where I have developed workshops and 1-2-1 sessions associated with Resilience and Mental Toughness Development to help referees. The workshops and 1-2-1 sessions are interactive, where referees are encouraged to open up and share their experiences to help themselves and each other.

Feel free to contact me if you’d like to know more about my workshops or 1-2-1 sessions and how I could help you or your officials.

Best Wishes,