In sport, emotions are everything.
They influence how athletes think, move, perform, and connect with others.
Emotions aren’t just internal — they’re contagious.
When frustration, anxiety, or guilt takes hold, those feelings can ripple through a team, triggering what’s known as team collapse.
A single athlete’s body language or tone can unknowingly spark a domino effect, dragging everyone into underperformance.
But emotion doesn’t just lead to collapse — it can also drive recovery.
What matters is how athletes regulate what they feel.
Research shows that effective emotional regulation strategies — like self-compassion, perspective-taking, and staying grounded — help athletes perform better, bounce back faster, and support their teammates.
On the flip side, unhelpful strategies like suppression, blaming, or emotional withdrawal not only fail to improve performance, but often deepen emotional fatigue and fracture team trust.
A 2024 study by Wergin and colleagues explored how 69 athletes experienced and regulated emotions during both team collapse and performance recovery.
During collapse moments, athletes reported feeling overwhelmed and unsure of how to respond.
Many suppressed their emotions or encouraged teammates to do the same, leading to increased frustration, disconnection, and emotional burnout.
Some simply avoided helping, often because they didn’t know how.
In contrast, during performance recovery, athletes leaned on more constructive strategies.
They reframed mistakes, showed self-compassion, and supported teammates through calm communication, humor, and positive reinforcement.
These behaviors helped the team refocus, ease tension, and rebuild energy.
The main takeaway is that emotional regulation isn’t just an individual skill — it’s a team one.
The way teammates respond to each other in high-pressure moments can either deepen the spiral or spark a turnaround.
Teams that are taught how to regulate emotions together are more resilient, more connected, and better prepared to handle adversity.
For coaches and practitioners, this means embedding emotional regulation training into the culture of sport — not as a one-off tool, but as a consistent team habit.
Because in the moments that matter most, how your team feels could determine how they finish.
