You know the feeling—racing thoughts, fear of losing, heart pounding, sweaty palms, and you just can’t focus. It usually comes up before a big match. Perhaps it’s your first tournament in a while, or perhaps you’re playing in the final of your club championship.

Usually, in mental performance, we try to tackle these symptoms by addressing the thoughts and beliefs behind them. As we’ve discussed over the last few weeks in my applied sport psychology writing, the activation of your sympathetic nervous system and the release of norepinephrine, epinephrine, and eventually cortisol is due to how you view the upcoming match.

Thinking of it as a threat can have adverse psychophysiological and visuomotor consequences.

If we remove the scientific jargon, this just means how you interpret the importance of the match has impacts upon your heartrate, the amount of nerves and anxiety you feel in your body, and also your mind.

But what if your thoughts are spiraling and you can’t think straight before matches, and addressing the thoughts behind this reaction isn’t working?

Players will often say something like this to me. That, “I can’t think my way out of these scenarios. Especially before I am about to play a match. I just get so tight and tense and my thoughts are going haywire with worries about losing and the resulting anxiety that I feel in my body.”

That’s when we go through the body instead. Put another way, we try to target these symptoms somatically. One of the most-used tools in sport psychology is something called progressive muscle relaxation—or PMR.

And I’ve made a free tape for you to download. Before you rush off to save it to your phone, though, there are a few important caveats to consider in application, and I advise you to understand what it is and how it works.

Think of it like a short meditation where you tense and relax different parts of your body while keeping your breath calm and steady. Hailing from the cognitive behavioral therapies, it is a tried and trusted form of arousal regulation. In fact, some proponents of mindfulness actually make the case that this technique is closer to third-wave techniques… because think about what you’re doing

Progressive muscle relaxation is a form of arousal control and is basically a relaxation skill that will help you chill out. That being said, there are a number of factors to consider before you use it.

The first is that my recommendation is to not use it immediately before your match. Why? Think about it like this. On an axis, we have super-hyped up, somatically anxious… and on the other side we have basically asleep.

You don’t want to get too close to the asleep part on this axis. You do need a little bit of somatic anxiety to get you to play your best. The problem only arises when we’re way too jacked up. So my recommendation is to have finished up listening to a PMR about 10 minutes before you play.

Second, I invite you to practice and listen to this audio recording at least 3 times a week. Great times to listen to it are just before going to bed. The more you practice these relaxation skills, the easier it will be to access them before matches—and even during matches, when you really need it. You’ll find that if you’re consistently listening and practicing, your arousal control will improve quite drastically.

Because, in a way, that’s what you’re experiencing at the start of matches; you’re having trouble controlling your arousal.

Download yours below. It’s completely free. There is no catch. Think of it as a thanks for being a consistent reader of my newsletter and of wanting to improve your mental skills.

How to get your PMR audio:

Tension, nerves, anxiety experienced in your mind and somatically are not a death sentence to your performance. They are an issue of cognitive appraisal and there is probably a component to you seeing the upcoming competition as a threat.

But we do not have to be victims of our minds or the circumstance. We can use evidence-based methods, like PMR, to help us regulate ourselves, thereby improving our chances of performing how we want.

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed psychologist, mental health counselor, PsyD, or clinical PhD. I am currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology and am a sport psychology practitioner-in-training, working toward the Certified Mental Performance Consultant® (CMPC®) credential provided by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). My work focuses on applied, non-clinical mental performance consulting, using evidence-based techniques grounded in psychology, sport science, and applied sport psychology to help athletes enhance focus, manage pressure, build confidence, and improve performance. I do not provide mental health counseling or clinical therapy. When needed, I will always refer clients to licensed mental health professionals for concerns beyond the scope of performance consulting. I have over 20 years of experience in tennis, including as a player, collegiate and professional coach, and director of programs. I am certified by the Professional Tennis Registry and am a member of Tennis Australia. My goal is to bring athletes the best research-backed insights to support long-term development and performance. If you are a researcher or practitioner and feel I’ve misunderstood or misrepresented any concept, I welcome you to reach out, and I will gladly review and issue corrections if appropriate.