The Power of Emotions in Sports

Every day, we experience emotions as responses to our environment and the stimuli that shape our experiences. The nature of these stimuli triggers reactions that are influenced by the emotional context of each situation. In competitive sports, the environment is dominated by stress, pressure, and challenges – factors that evoke a wide range of sensations, feelings, and emotions. From personal experience, we know that emotions are closely linked to performance. Science confirms that both too much and too little emotional intensity can negatively impact athletic performance.

A prime example is anxiety – arguably the most extensively studied emotion in sports. A certain level of anxiety is beneficial: without any anxiety, an athlete might lack the necessary tension to perform at their best, whereas excessive anxiety can severely limit performance. This is why emotions are categorized based on their intensity and valence (whether they feel pleasant or unpleasant) within so-called individual performance zones. These zones represent the emotional intensity levels that are most conducive to peak performance.

Competitive sports are one of the greatest challenges for both body and mind. It’s no surprise that they trigger a vast spectrum of sensations, feelings, and emotions. However, ignoring these emotions is not an option – athletes must learn to understand and manage them on the deepest level to unlock their full potential.

The interplay between sensations, emotions, and feelings often resembles a complex web of conscious and unconscious perceptions that significantly influence our thoughts, behavior, and overall awareness. To bring clarity to these concepts, it’s helpful to examine them individually:

• Sensations are the “raw data” our body receives from the environment through our senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell). They are primarily physiological responses to external stimuli or signals from within the body. Sensations arise directly from the contact between our sensory organs and a stimulus.
• Emotions are complex, automatic responses to specific situations, involving both psychological and physiological processes. They are often accompanied by physical reactions such as an increased heart rate or changes in breathing. Emotions tend to be intense but short-lived, arising spontaneously in reaction to an event or thought.
• Feelings are subjective experiences that occur when we reflect on and interpret our emotions and sensations. They are more conscious and influenced by cognitive processes, shaped by our thoughts, beliefs, and memories. Feelings are highly individual and can vary significantly from person to person. Unlike automatic emotions, we have greater awareness and control over our feelings.

These concepts can be understood as a hierarchy of perception, operating on both unconscious and conscious levels. While sensations are immediate physical responses to stimuli, emotions represent automatic mental and bodily reactions. Feelings, on the other hand, are the conscious reflection and interpretation of these emotions and sensations. In other words, feelings emerge from our thoughts about emotions and are reinforced by those thoughts.

Interestingly, in everyday language, we use the word feeling to describe both physical and emotional states.

A key difference between feelings and emotions is that feelings are consciously experienced, whereas emotions mostly operate on a subconscious level. Feelings emerge after a physical sensation or emotional experience has occurred and are consciously perceived. Emotions, on the other hand, primarily unfold in the subconscious and are closely linked to thoughts, desires, and actions.

Things get particularly interesting when sensations and emotions rise to the level of conscious awareness. At this point, the mind actively intervenes – both in positive and negative ways. When affective elements become strong enough, they push into consciousness and demand attention. In emotion research, the term affect is used to describe a general emotional state without specifying a particular emotion or condition. Affect refers to the overall emotional experience we have throughout the day and consists of two key components: the degree to which a sensation feels pleasant or unpleasant, and the level of arousal or calmness it induces. Even a neutral state is considered a form of affect.

To effectively manage sensations, emotions, and feelings, it is essential to clearly differentiate between these concepts. In sports, it is neither realistic nor desirable to perform in a state of complete emotional detachment. Instead, the goal is to develop a conscious and purposeful approach to dealing with these inner processes, particularly in the high-intensity moments of an athlete’s daily routine.

Science widely agrees that affect is a fundamental mechanism of the human nervous system and, like other sensory impressions, an essential part of consciousness. Just as the brain processes light waves to create our perception of brightness, darkness, and color, or interprets sound waves as noise, it also generates pleasant or unpleasant feelings based on changes it perceives in the body during athletic activity.

Interoception refers to the process by which the nervous system receives, interprets, and integrates signals from within the body. It provides a real-time snapshot of our internal state, operating on both conscious and unconscious levels. These signals play a crucial role in reflexes, impulses, emotions, and cognitive processes. Interoception helps us maintain internal balance (homeostasis) and ensures our survival. However, an unpleasant sensation doesn’t always indicate a problem – sometimes, it simply means the body is under strain. At every moment, the brain assigns meaning to our sensations, and some of these are interoceptive signals that serve as the foundation of our feelings and emotions.

Although interoception involves the entire body, specific brain regions work together to form an interoceptive network. A key player in this system is the default mode network, which is active in many mental states and is crucial for our emotions and feelings. No decision or action is entirely free from interoception, even if we like to believe we are acting purely rationally – what you feel now influences what you will feel and do in the future.

To test your interoceptive abilities, try focusing on your heartbeat. The more accurately you can perceive it, the better you can consciously interpret your body’s internal state. More broadly, interoception is closely linked to body awareness, which can be specifically trained through techniques such as meditation – an increasingly valuable tool for athletes.

Even though sports often focus on the body, the brain remains our most powerful organ – especially when it comes to emotions. Emotions are not simply experienced; they are constructed. According to this perspective, the brain actively shapes mental states such as bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions in every waking moment, based on situational concepts. It does so by combining three types of stimuli: sensory signals from the outside world (exteroception), sensory signals from within the body (interoception), and past experiences (including memory and conceptual knowledge). These sources are constantly available, and their processing forms the foundation of all mental activity. Different “recipes” – that is, varying combinations and weightings of these stimuli – create the full spectrum of our mental experiences, including perceptions, emotions, and feelings.

For example, if your brain processes a sore muscle (internal signal), the pressure of competition (external signal), and your past experience that long competitions are exhausting, it constructs the concept of “discomfort”. In turn, it automatically prepares physical responses that influence your feelings.

Simulation is the brain’s default mode of operation. Essentially, our brain is always making guesses about what is happening in the world. Every second, our senses bombard us with ambiguous and sometimes conflicting information. To make sense of this, the brain relies on past experiences to generate a hypothesis – a simulation – which it then compares with incoming sensory data. This process helps the brain assign meaning to the overwhelming stream of sensory input, filtering out what’s relevant and ignoring the rest.

Our mental world is shaped by our history and our current needs. Scientific research suggests that what we see, hear, feel, taste, and smell is not a direct experience of reality but primarily a simulation constructed by our brain. These simulations are built upon concepts the brain retrieves automatically and invisibly, making our sensory perceptions feel immediate and reflexive – even though they are, in reality, constructed interpretations.

The brain is wired to search for causal explanations and struggles to accept pure, raw experiences. When we focus on an event, our associative memory automatically seeks a cause – often drawing from pre-existing concepts stored in our mind. This means that emotions and feelings can be distorted, as they are shaped by context and personal interpretation.

If we acknowledge that many stressful emotions in sports are, to some extent, illusions, then mental training can be seen as a process of dismantling these illusions. The deeper we understand this process, the better decisions we can make – both in competition and in life.

The decision to pursue or avoid something is one of the most fundamental human behaviors. Feelings serve as an evolutionary tool designed to guide us toward what the brain perceives as the right decision. In these moments, we don’t analyze – we act. Feelings are deeply ingrained, fast, and efficient decision-making aids. However, for an athlete, a negative feeling doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong. More often, it simply signals that your body is under strain. Intense training and competition naturally disrupt your internal balance – this is normal. Your affect doesn’t provide a direct action plan but instead prompts your brain to search for an explanation.

Feelings assign meaning to sensations. Without them, bodily sensations would be nothing more than neutral signals. In a way, feelings act as the brain’s first line of defense – an automated evaluation tool that helps prioritize thoughts. Among the many competing thoughts at any given moment, the one with the strongest emotional weight is often the one that enters conscious awareness.

The primary function of sensations, feelings, and emotions is to prepare us for action and guide us toward a solution. When we listen to them, they can provide valuable insights. However, if we ignore our emotions and push through obstacles under the guise of “mental toughness,” we risk overlooking our own needs and limits. At the same time, many of our feelings are based on simulations within our interoceptive network – in other words, we often feel what our brain expects us to feel. The brain constructs meanings from sensory inputs and past experiences, shaping our reactions. If we strongly believe that a competition will be difficult at a certain moment, our brain will make it feel difficult.

Feelings evolved to help us assess our internal state and environment. The problem? Evolution shaped our emotional responses in a world that bears little resemblance to modern competitive sports. If feelings lead us to poor decisions – such as excessive ambition pushing us beyond safe limits – they can be considered false signals. Moreover, feelings are not designed to give us an accurate representation of reality; rather, they exist to serve one fundamental biological purpose – ensuring survival and reproduction, even if that means sometimes misleading us.

Elite sports push both body and mind to their limits. Even in a controlled environment, the brain often interprets extreme exertion as a threat and tries to make us stop. This is why discomfort in sports is not just common – it’s unavoidable. The key is not to eliminate these feelings but to develop the skills to manage them effectively. Mastering this mental game is what separates good athletes from truly great ones.