AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF STRESS MANAGEMENT STYLES AMONG MEDAL-WINNING NATIONAL HANDBALL PLAYERS IN INDIA

AUTHOR – VIJAY SINGH RATNAKAR, PHD. SCHOLAR AT DR. CV RAMAN UNIVERSITY,BILASPUR

BEST CITATION – VIJAY SINGH RATNAKAR, AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF STRESS MANAGEMENT STYLES AMONG MEDAL-WINNING NATIONAL HANDBALL PLAYERS IN INDIA, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 5 (11) OF 2025, PG. 569-575, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344

Background of the Study

Sports psychology has gained prominence in India as athletes now face intense competitive and societal pressures. Traditionally, coaches focused on physical training, but “many teams around the world have been utilizing mental techniques in the improvement of players’ performance”[1]. In other words, sports psychologists recognize that stress management is integral to peak performance. For example, it has been noted that the primary interest of sport psychologists is to “provide and maintain an athlete’s mental health and well-being in the midst of the stresses of a competition,” thereby improving athletic performance[2][1]. Indian athletes are no exception: recent surveys report that a large majority (around 78%) of Indian sportspeople feel moderate-to-high stress before major events, often driven by fear of failure[3]. In high-visibility sports like handball, national-level medalists shoulder especially heavy burdens of expectation, given that India’s men’s and women’s teams have captured South Asian Games gold medals in recent years. In this context, effective stress management is critical both for sustaining performance under pressure and for safeguarding athlete well-being[4][1]. Sports psychologists emphasize techniques – from mental rehearsal to relaxation exercises – to help players “cope with stressful situations” and stabilize performance[5][1]. In India today, institutional support for athlete mental health is growing: for the first time the Indian Olympic Association’s Paris 2024 team included a sports psychologist and psychiatrist on its medical staff, underscoring that “the mental wellness of an athlete is extremely important”[6][7]. This study therefore examines how elite Indian handball players manage stress, with a view to improving coping strategies for medal-winning athletes.