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Performance anxiety in athletes has been recognized by mental health practitioners for many years. Choking during competition or during specific times during the competition,is a clear symptom  of anxiety in many athletes .Choking during competition is describe as a decrease in performance due to excessive stress.

Performance anxiety can in fact provide a positive race-day boost if an athlete learns to channel his anxiety into better performance.
As anxiety among athletes produces mistakes and errors in judgment. A common mistake that most athletes make is avoiding the competitive side of a sport altogether after an initial overwhelming confrontation with performance anxiety . Such an experience is only traumatizing if an athlete allows it to remain so by not rationalizing his anxiety and preparing for his next bout with it. Just as an athlete prepares himself for the customary physical and mental rigors of a sport, so must he prepare for the inevitable advent of anxiety borne of competition.

Factors that can lead to performance anxiety in athletes are lack confidence in his or her abilities, fear of failure,or have poor concentration skills.

To deal with such a condition  mental skills in order to develop mental toughness and mental strength training have been developed. A few tips that can help are:

• Be positive,say “I know I can win”.
• Visualize mentally a tape where you are winning the competition.
• Breathe deeply as this will help relax your tensed muscles.
• Stay focus on the task at hand not its consequences.