Athletes and "the twisties": What We Can Learn About Performance Anxiety.

Imagine standing on the world's biggest stage. Your family, friends, and strangers you don’t even know are watching your every move. Your brain and body start denying the other exists. You fly into the air to flip, and you literally lose track of where the ground is. 

For many athletes, this is called “the twisties”.

But what are they? In the sports world, the twisties are a type of "yips", where out of nowhere there's an unexplained mental block you can’t seem to overcome. When you practice a skill thousands of times, your brain puts it on autopilot. But when extreme stress or anxiety kicks in, your brain's defense mechanism tries to take over manually. The result? Total mental and physical overload. You can get confused, your rhythm gets broken, and in a high-flying sport like gymnastics, it can actually be incredibly dangerous. But why do athletes often feel this way?

The need for public validation, representing your nation with excellence and integrity, can become the most vacillating experiences one can have. When your entire self-esteem is tied to your next achievement, your actions end up becoming controlled by it. You stop working toward goals because they excite you, and you start running toward them just to escape the terrifying fear of failure. Psychologists call this maladaptive perfectionism. It’s the voice in your head that says, "If I'm not perfect, I am nothing." This keeps your brain in a constant state of low-grade panic, making it impossible to actually enjoy the things you are genuinely good at. The toll this can have on someone mentally is unimaginable. So, if you're an athlete seeking the public validation you think you want, stop and do it for yourself instead.