What happens when arousal levels are too high?
Noelia Schamberger
2025-07-22 05:26:35
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: 9
If your arousal levels are too low, you become disengaged and spaced out. Conversely, if you are too aroused for a task regardless of its nature, your physical and mental actions can be greatly affected. If your arousal is too high, attention to detail deteriorates. Anxiety levels increase and you can become easily distracted by the result of the task, rather than focusing on the execution of the task. For example, if someone is attempting personal best bench press and they are too aroused, they will most likely forget technique cues which can let down their attempt. In contact sports this may result in injury, where your body is not physically prepared for contact.
Ernestina Padberg
2025-07-22 05:05:19
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: 8
Extreme over-arousal can be manifest by a range of symptoms that will be peculiar to the individual, the environment, the task and other factors. Such symptoms may include: panic, aggression, submission, resignation, withdrawal, irrational behaviour and mood swings, as well as unconsciousness. When arousal is too high, perhaps due to overload, then once again we start to make more errors, find it harder to be decisive and take longer to react (if at all). One characteristic of over-arousal is our tendency to narrow attention and focus, such that other information is ignored or just not sensed. It is not always the most critical element that we dedicate full attention to either, as we become incapable of assessing risk and allocating priorities. We may sub-consciously put full attention only onto a task that we know we can achieve easily. Ultimately we can breakdown and fail to function all together.
Tyler Wintheiser
2025-07-22 04:09:43
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: 13
At medium arousal levels, sporting performance peaks. At high arousal levels, performance quality deteriorates. This can be described as panic and might explain why a football player performs very poorly when their team is losing 3-0. The 'inverted U' theory proposes that sporting performance improves as arousal levels increase but that there is a threshold point. Any increase in arousal beyond the threshold point will worsen performance.
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