American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance - AAHPERD

 Issue: August 2007

The Stress Process in Physical Education
Bonnie Tjeerdsma Blankenship

Abstract:
Negative stress in physical education can reduce a student’s enjoyment of physical activity and destroy the individual’s desire to be a lifelong mover.The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of stress in physical education. Stress is defined as a substantial imbalance between the demand of a situation and the individual’s capability to respond, when the consequences are important to the individual. The stress process consists of four stages: (1) a demand (which can be physical, psychological, or cognitive); (2) appraisal of the demand and of the available resources and capability to deal with the demand; (3) a negative response to the cognitive appraisal of the demand and the resources with various levels of cognitive and somatic anxiety, depression, fear, and anger; and (4) the stress response, which affects behavior and/or performance. This article discusses various strategies that can help students to overcome each stage of the stress process so they will view physical education as a positive, life-enhancing experience.

Article category: Teaching