{"id":31894,"date":"2020-07-24T09:12:55","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T13:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=31894"},"modified":"2020-06-20T03:02:11","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T07:02:11","slug":"study-suggests-elite-gamers-share-mental-toughness-with-top-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2020\/07\/study-suggests-elite-gamers-share-mental-toughness-with-top-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Study suggests elite gamers share mental toughness with top athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the Queensland University of Technology press release:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"first\" class=\"lead\"><strong>High performing esports professionals may require the same mental stamina it takes to be a top Olympian<\/strong>, according to latest QUT research.<\/p>\n<div id=\"text\">\n<p>A new study, published in\u00a0<strong><em>Frontiers in Psychology<\/em><\/strong>, indicated an <strong>overlap between the mental toughness and stress-coping processes in traditional sports and competitive esports athletes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Competitive esports athletes<\/strong> appear to cope with stressors similarly to high-performing sports athletes<\/li>\n<li>esports players with <strong>higher ranks<\/strong> tended to have <strong>higher levels of mental toughness<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>sports psychology interventions for high-performing sports athletes may also be beneficial to competitive esports athletes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>QUT esports researcher Dylan Poulus said 316 esports players aged 18 and over were studied from among the top 40 per cent of players.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A disposition considered to be influential in sporting success is mental toughness and it appears to be important for success in esports,&#8221; Mr Poulus said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be a millionaire esports gamer you deal with stress similar as if you are getting ready to go to the Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is one of the fastest growing sports in the world, and with the coronavirus pandemic there has been huge interest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The study used athletes who played Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rainbow Six: Siege, Defence of the Ancients 2 and League of Legends competitively.<\/p>\n<p>Events can draw more than 60 million online views.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Poulus said the study identified some of the mental skills required for optimal performance among gamers, including <strong>high levels of mental toughness, emotional control, and life control<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Similar to traditional sports athletes, <strong>esports athletes with higher mental toughness employed more problem-focused coping strategies which aided in their success<\/strong>,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>However, the findings also showed how <strong>esports athletes with high mental toughness employed emotion-focused coping strategies like acceptance coping<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By accepting the elements of their game that are beyond their control could lead to better performance,&#8221; Mr Poulus said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everything we see in sports psychology interventions that work with traditional sports is likely going to work with esports athletes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Poulus is completing his PhD at QUT&#8217;s Faculty of Health school of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>The research, titled Stress and Coping in Esports and the Influence of Mental Toughness, was co-authored by Michael Trotter, Dr Tristan Coulter and Professor Remco Polman.<\/p>\n<p>This study was one of the first studies to investigate mental toughness and stress and coping in performing esports athletes.<\/p>\n<p>Further research is investigating what specifically causes stress to high performing esports athletes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Queensland University of Technology press release: High performing esports professionals may require the same mental stamina it takes to be a top Olympian, according to latest QUT research&#8230;. <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2020\/07\/study-suggests-elite-gamers-share-mental-toughness-with-top-athletes\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[338],"tags":[227,12,62,225,237],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31973,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31894\/revisions\/31973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}