how do I go about putting sport and psychology together

Question: how do I go about putting sport and psychology together
- Keywords:
  advice,
  sport
Asked by anon-285893 on 4 Mar 2021.
- Ellen Smith answered on 4 Mar 2021:
  
  There’s an area of psychology called ‘Sport and Exercise Psychology’ which looks at the psychological factors that influence sport performance and exercise behaviour. It’s not an area that I study but it seems that you would first study an undergraduate degree in Psychology and then can complete a master’s degree specialising in Sport Psychology. This link gives you a bit more information about what is involves and how you would go about doing it: https://careers.bps.org.uk/area/sport-exercise
- anon answered on 4 Mar 2021:
  
  Hi sydniesmithson5,
  
  Ellen has given a great answer already! I thought I would mention a few studies you may find interesting.
  
  There is some research that suggests that exercising whilst doing cognitive tasks (like memory and attention) can improve ability due to blood flow to the brain. It can also have long lasting effects on our brain physically (for the better) as well as influence our genes, throughout something called ‘epigenetics’.
  
  There’s also a lot of research into mental health and exercise. I read a few papers that found that mood was improved as much by cold water swimming as taking antidepressants!
  
  There are lots of ways of combining psychology and exercise – both academically in research or applied as Ellen has explained. I hope that gives you a bit more a broad look in the two subjects.
- Lisa Orchard answered on 4 Mar 2021:
  
  The others have provided some great responses so I won’t add too much to those. However, as I am from cyberpsychology, I wanted to share ‘sport cyberpsychology’ as a new field of interest. There is a book by Dr Olivia Hurley on this topic, and looks at the role of technology for athletics (e.g. fitness apps, gps, etc). I saw her at a conference and found it a fascinating topic!
- Simon Payne answered on 5 Mar 2021:
  
  Hi @sydniesmithson5. The psychology of a sportsperson can often touch on lots of other branches of psychology (e.g., developmental, cognitive, social, clinical). For example, does participating in sport from a young age influence the development of a child in other areas; how do athletes process information in the visual field, anticipate their opponent’s actions and produce an appropriate counter movement; how are the dynamics within a team associated with their behaviour and thus performance on the field; what sorts of competitive environments promote the onset of (or exacerbate underlying) clinical symptoms such as disordered eating or depression. Studying sport psychology would give you a nice well-rounded understanding of all of this interesting stuff. You could choose to go on and teach sport psychology, practice applied sport psychology with athletes, and/or do research which informs teaching and practice. Principles from sport psychology are often also applied in other areas of human life where performance is important, such as medicine (e.g., surgery), performing arts, martial arts, business, and more. If you are interested in psychology *and* sport it can be a great choice of subject to study.
- Harry Piper answered on 5 Mar 2021:
  
  This is a great question! Lots of people have already answered so I’ll give you an idea of how I know it has been done or I plan to do! I once knew someone who looked at trirugby Brazil! I’m not a sports psychologist but I had planned a couple of overlap studies with sports psychology – for example using physiological measures in threat detection and looking at kinematics involved in self defense! It depends on your interest but there are lots of ways!
- Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 5 Mar 2021:
  
  Sadly, it’s not my area. And I also don’t have any sports. 🙁

Question: how do I go about putting sport and psychology together

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