We mentioned that when skiing it is natural to present biological stress, that is to say, responses of our organism to adapt to the pressures of the mountain environment but we can also turn stress into our worst enemy, then our physiological, cognitive, emotional, or behavioral reactions end up becoming harmful to both our mind and our body.
Due to the intensity of skiing itself, every skier experiences some pleasant or unpleasant stress. Contrary to the general belief that it is a negative nervous tension to be avoided, stress is the effect of our motivational energy of innate drives to satisfy our needs and achieve our goals.
Upon arriving at the mountain coming from a stressful environment, we may have the tendency to continue with the same rush: we try to descend the slopes as many times or as many runs as possible where our goal may be to ‘get down’ rather than to experience the pleasure of gliding, the nature, the scenery, or the social environment.
Our intense pace of skiing does not allow the assimilation of the experience since skiing in a hurry makes it difficult to recognize our own sensations. In addition, our body interprets that we are in an emergency situation and releases stress hormones.
Both at recreational and competitive level, if we suffer from stress we will tend to make more mistakes since the resources we allocate to monitor the physiological activation caused by the stressful situation compete with those destined for our performances.
We will experience an altered mind and an anomaly in decision making, being prone to act compulsively to get out of the situation perceived as alarming or challenging. For some skiers, stress restricts technique and reduces the pleasure of skiing. When we realize that we are not using an efficient technique, our enthusiasm turns to anxiety, which is a common reaction and causes anticipatory worry about feeling forced to perform, restricting our nervous reactions, and limiting the free flow of technical actions.
The generation of stress in skiing has its origin in our interaction with the environment which tends to produce an imbalance between our internal requirements (individual variables) and external ones (situational variables), and the resources available to cope with them.
When the requirements exceed our own resources, adaptive reactions originate involving physiological activations. For example, when facing a challenge that exceeds our capabilities, our mind and body will be exposed to a state of general alertness. If this state is activated in the face of a specific situation it is considered natural but if it is activated without being in the presence of a real threat or challenge, then we will be faced with a psychological conflict that must be resolved.
Stress as a psychological phenomenon is variable and some skiers are affected more than others. If we assess that the situation demands too much or exceeds our resources, endangering our own well-being, we will perceive it as stressful. Of course that as being dynamic, the level of stress varies according to different personalities so some of us will be more susceptible than others, magnifying or attenuating each context. Our motivation, attitude, predisposition, coping style, and emotional responses all play a role in forming strategies for coping with the stressful environment.
Therefore, feeling happy when skiing does not mean completely eliminating stress. To be self-fulfilled skiers we always need to have some challenge, some goal we want to achieve even if it is small and that generates the necessary stress that motivates us to achieve it. We should learn about our own level of resistance to stress because, when it is excessive, then we may abandon the situation.
Unfamiliar contexts and our own vulnerability
A scenario evaluated by us as unfamiliar creates uncertainty and expectation then our mind activates a stress alert since the unknown predisposes our body to act. If we determine that the context presents a threat, our stress response may be strengthened. The level of stress will then depend on the discrepancy between the expectation of what we estimate to be encountered and what is actually met.
When presented with undesirable situations involving challenges or threats, according to our personality, we may exhibit adaptive capacity or feel dejected by our vulnerability to the stress that the context entails. We should remember that a situation is not stressful of itself but rather what it means to us. According to our own interpretation, we will consider it threatening or evaluate it as neutral. This difference in appreciation is due in part to our own ability to cope.
Skiers differ not only in their interpretation of stressful environments; they also diverge in their vulnerability to stress which varies according to their personality. Vulnerability to stress is directly proportional to a maladaptive behavior: the greater our vulnerability, the greater our maladaptive behavior.
If we are vulnerable to stressful situations, we may not have the capacity to face and resolve them, while having a sense of personal efficacy (self-efficacy) we could exhibit the capacity to face situations in which we do not have a previous response, therefore we will be less vulnerable to stress.
Stressors as a source of stress
Stressors are understood as certain environmental conditions that generate stress because they produce tension when we perceive them as dangerous. Stress is the response to these conditions, that is, our reaction to stressors which is made up of two components: the psychological (thoughts, behaviors, emotions) and the physiological (body activation).
We can state that stressors are unforeseen conditions that occur and are perceived as difficulties, excessive demands, or threats, these being the causes that generate stress. Since our nervous system does not differentiate between real and imaginary (thought-generated) stressors, we can be stressed whether we are the actual victim of an accident or whether we think about the possibility of it happening.
Stressors can be classified into:
- Threat: anticipation of physical or psychological harm.
- Fatigue: reduced energy.
- Time pressure: reduced execution time.
- Novelty: unexpected or uncertain events.
- Performance pressure: increased possibility of making mistakes.
- Task overload: increase in the number of actions to be performed.
The beginner using skis for the first time, the family arriving for a vacation at a new ski resort, the expert before descending an unfamiliar off-piste, the athlete in the moments before starting a race, the instructor organizing a group of skiers of different levels, or the coach during preparations for a tour are all situations that generate a certain level of stress.
