Mental training lowers an archer's pre-competition anxiety

The summary today

Studies of archers do not agree, and what divides them is the design more than the technique. Where anxiety was also measured in a comparison group the picture is thin and split: the oldest study, four weeks of relaxation and imagery in eighteen Greek archers, does not shift the anxiety measured a quarter of an hour before competition, while the three supporting comparisons that arrived in 2025 and 2026 rest on ten archers per arm or fewer, one in a regional journal and two in venues with questionable editorial standards. The large falls, sometimes enormous, come instead from studies with no controls or with controls who were never given those questionnaires: six Olympic archers after a year and a half of psychological support, three young Korean women after twenty-four weeks of biofeedback, twelve Hong Kong archers after twelve weeks of mindfulness. The cases in which nothing moves carry little weight either, such as three young members of the Korean national reserve squad and six elite Koreans who were calm to begin with. The most instructive contrast sits inside a single study, where imagery together with self-talk lowers cognitive anxiety from 12.8 to 9.9 and imagery on its own raises it: the direction seems to depend on which technique is trained and on how anxious the archer was to begin with.

Also phrased as: "imagery calms you before the competition"; "mental training takes away competition anxiety"; "breathing and pre-competition anxiety in archery"; "mindfulness for anxious archers"; "mental training and tension in competition"

Evidence

• 1991
  Against Archers Published later

  Eighteen Greek archers, nine from the national squad and nine of good standard, eight sessions of relaxation and imagery over four weeks with practice at home, real competitions as the before and after tests: the CSAI-2 collected fifteen minutes before the competition does not change, somatic anxiety F = 0.85, cognitive F = 0.48, confidence F = 0.85, all with p above 0.05. In the trained group somatic anxiety goes from 12.33 to 12.89.

  Visuomotor Behavior Rehearsal in Archery Shooting Performance · Yannis Zervas, Vassilis Kakkos

• 2008
  For Archers Published later

  Six recurve archers of the Taiwanese Olympic team followed for about eighteen months towards Athens 2004: at the end, trait competitive anxiety measured with the SCAT is lower, and task and ego orientation also rise. The values appear only in a figure and there is no statistics and no control group.

  Provision of sport psychology services to Taiwan archery team for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games · Tsung‐Min Hung, Tse‐Chuan Lin, Chia‐Ling Lee, Ling‐Chun Chen

• 2010
  Against Archers Published later

  Three eighteen-year-old archers from the South Korean national reserve squad, eight weeks of mental training before the World Youth Championships, three one-hour sessions a week of heart-rate biofeedback, cognitive restructuring and competition routines: cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and confidence measured on the CSAI-2 before, halfway and at the end show no trend at all, with large differences from one archer to another. There are only individual graphs and no statistics, and the authors put it down to a ceiling effect in archers already at that level.

  The Effects of Psychological Skills Training in the Archery Field · Byung Hyun Kim, Chang Hwon Yang

• 2010
  Context Archers Published later

  In the interviews after the programme the three no longer talk about fear of other people's judgement, but the fear of making a mistake at critical moments remains, such as the first match or a tie, and so do the same bodily reactions when they are anxious: a racing heart, stiff muscles, trembling, the feel of the shot slipping away. What changes is the object of the anxiety more than its shape. Same study as the contrary item, so it counts once.

  The Effects of Psychological Skills Training in the Archery Field · Byung Hyun Kim, Chang Hwon Yang

• 2011
  For Archers Published later

  Three Korean high-school archers in line for the national squad, twenty-four weeks of arousal control with heart-rate biofeedback: on the CSAI-2, a one to four scale, cognitive anxiety goes from 2.68 to 2.26, somatic from 2.67 to 1.92 and confidence from 1.85 to 2.85. No statistical test, no control, and a whole season inside the interval.

  Effect of Arousal Control Training Conjugated Heart Rate Biofeedback for National Substitute Archery Players · Seong-Taek Hong

• 2011
  For Archers Published later

  Of the three, the fifteen-year-old who started with the highest anxiety and the lowest confidence moves most, cognitive anxiety from 3.22 to 2.56 and confidence from 1.67 to 3.44, and in competition she goes from twenty-sixth in late April to fourth in August with 1371 out of 1440. A single case, inside one season.

  Effect of Arousal Control Training Conjugated Heart Rate Biofeedback for National Substitute Archery Players · Seong-Taek Hong

• 2011
  Context Archers Published later

  The starting point of those three archers shows how much room there was to fall: mean cognitive anxiety 2.68 on a scale that goes to 4, somatic 2.67, and above all confidence 1.85, which is very low. The initial problem was confidence more than anxiety, and the same programme in someone who starts calm might move nothing.

  Effect of Arousal Control Training Conjugated Heart Rate Biofeedback for National Substitute Archery Players · Seong-Taek Hong

• 2011
  Context Other sport Published later

  One-year follow-up of a four-week mindfulness course for archers, golfers and runners: on the Sport Anxiety Scale sport anxiety goes from 35.70 before the course to 40.35 at the end and 34.09 twelve months later, so it rises and then returns to where it started. The three sports are analysed together, there are four archers among the twenty-five who replied, the anxiety scale is complete for twenty, there is no control group and the scale measures sport anxiety in general, not anxiety before a competition.

  One Year Follow-Up of Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (MSPE) With Archers, Golfers, and Runners · Rachel W. Thompson, Keith A. Kaufman, Lilian A. De Petrillo, Carol R. Glass, Diane B. Arnkoff

• 2012
  Context Archers Published later

  Twenty-four Indian university archers, twelve doing twelve neurofeedback sessions over four weeks and twelve controls: felt arousal before competition on the affect grid, from one to nine, falls from 6.83 to 5.75 in the trained group and goes from 7.00 to 6.83 in the controls, with a between-group difference after the programme of t = 2.66, p = 0.014. It measures arousal rather than anxiety, though, and the two do not always move together: that is why it stays context.

  Effect of sensory motor rhythm neurofeedback on psycho-physiological, electro-encephalographic measures and performance of archery players · Maman Paul, Sathiyaseelan Ganesan, Jaspal Sandhu, Joel Simon

• 2015
  Context Archers Published later

  Eighteen Taiwanese university archers with relatively high competition anxiety, six weeks of computer training to steer attention away from threatening words against a control doing the same task: the threat-bias index does not change significantly between groups (p = 0.11) and only the early electrical component P1 shifts. Competition anxiety was not measured again after the training, and neither was shooting score.

  Effects of attentional training on visual attention to emotional stimuli in archers: A preliminary investigation · Lan-Ya Chuang, Chung-Ju Huang, Tsung-Min Hung

• 2016
  Context Archers Published later

  30 Indian archers who had competed at national and international level, allocated by coin toss either to six weeks of psychological skills training (imagery, progressive relaxation, rational emotive behaviour therapy, attention control) combined with shoulder strengthening, or to their coaches' usual training. Competitive trait anxiety (SCAT) changes significantly in the treated group and not in the controls, and the authors read this as lower pre-competition anxiety, but the paper reports no means: the only figure, 50.041, lies outside a scale that runs from 10 to 30. It is trait anxiety rather than anxiety on the day, the programme mixes mental work with strength work, and the journal has questionable editorial standards.

  Effect of psycho-physiotherapeutic approach in enhancing performance among elite archers Questionable venue · Namrita Dhillon, Narkeesh Arumugam, Harprit Kaur, Shefali Gambhir

• 2020
  Context Archers Published later

  Six elite Korean archers, three men and three women, eight sessions of neurofeedback-guided imagery: state anxiety on the CSAI-2 barely moves, cognitive from 1.88 to 1.85 and somatic from 1.70 to 1.605 on a scale that tops out at 4, and trait anxiety from 16.33 to 16. It falls in three archers, stays the same in two and rises slightly in one, with no statistical tests. Anxiety was already low at the start, and the study was mainly trying to improve imagery ability.

  A Case Study on the Effect of Imagery Training for Elite Archers of South Korea · Youngsook Kim, Taiseok Chang

• 2022
  For Archers Published later

  Forty-five archers from a Malaysian sports school, about fifteen years old, six weeks in three groups by technique: with imagery and self-talk together, cognitive anxiety falls from 12.80 to 9.86 and confidence rises from 7.87 to 18.40 (p < 0.001). There is no control group and the venue has questionable editorial standards.

  Effects of Imagery Training and Self-Talk towards State Anxiety and Archery Performance Questionable venue · Mohammad Amir Hakim Mat Isar, Nelfianty Mohd Rasyid, Shaharudin Abdul Aziz

• 2022
  For Archers Published later

  In those same archers, somatic anxiety halves in all three groups, from 27.3 to 12.8, from 26.9 to 11.9 and from 27.1 to 12.3. A fall that equal across different techniques and with no control looks more like an effect of repeating the test than an effect of the programme.

  Effects of Imagery Training and Self-Talk towards State Anxiety and Archery Performance Questionable venue · Mohammad Amir Hakim Mat Isar, Nelfianty Mohd Rasyid, Shaharudin Abdul Aziz

• 2022
  Against Archers Published later

  In the same Malaysian study, imagery alone does not lower cognitive anxiety: it rises from 13.13 ± 1.54 to 13.93 ± 1.60 over six weeks, while it falls in the two groups practising self-talk. Inside one experiment the direction changes with the technique.

  Effects of Imagery Training and Self-Talk towards State Anxiety and Archery Performance Questionable venue · Mohammad Amir Hakim Mat Isar, Nelfianty Mohd Rasyid, Shaharudin Abdul Aziz

• 2022
  Context Archers Published later

  Twenty Indian university archers, ten doing six weeks of meditation alongside their shooting and ten shooting only: in the meditation group the competitive anxiety score rises from 69.0 to 71.0, and the authors present this as an improvement without saying which way the scale runs; in the controls it goes from 69.1 to 69.6. The venue has questionable editorial standards, and the result cannot be read either for or against.

  Effect of Meditation on Mental Toughness and Sports Competitive Anxiety Among Archery Players Questionable venue · Amruta Raviraj Shinde

• 2023
  Context Other sport Published later

  Five elite junior pistol shooters, eight weeks of psychological skills training with no control group: sport anxiety and the subscales of the sport-specific scale do not change significantly, nor do the resting heart-rate variability indices. Another sport and five people, so context only.

  Psychological skills training impacts autonomic nervous system responses to stress during sport-specific imagery: An exploratory study in junior elite shooters · Gunyoung Lee, Jihoon Ryu, Teri Kim

• 2024
  For Archers Published later

  Twelve archers of the Hong Kong squad after twelve weeks of a mindfulness programme, with twelve controls matched for sex, ranking and competition: on the CSAI-2, cognitive anxiety goes from 19.83 to 13.25 (d = 1.68), somatic from 16.92 to 12.25 (d = 1.46) and confidence from 19.50 to 27.00 (d = 2.24), all with p < 0.001. The questionnaires were given only to the treated group, so the comparison with the controls on these scales does not exist.

  Examining the Feasibility of a Mindfulness Flow Program for the Hong Kong Archers · Ka K. Lo, Mimi M. Y. Tse, Joanne W. Y. Chung, Queenie P. S. Law, Fenghua Sun

• 2024
  For Archers Published later

  In the same group the largest change is not in anxiety but in confidence, d = 2.24, while measured mindfulness and flow move little, d = 0.65 and 0.66. If the programme works, it does not follow that it works by the route it claims.

  Examining the Feasibility of a Mindfulness Flow Program for the Hong Kong Archers · Ka K. Lo, Mimi M. Y. Tse, Joanne W. Y. Chung, Queenie P. S. Law, Fenghua Sun

• 2024
  Against Review Published later

  The review reports eleven bowling players aged fifteen to twenty-one doing a single fifteen-minute neurofeedback session with a consumer EEG headset, against a group with no intervention: neither the score nor the anxiety scale shows a significant difference. It is another sport and a minimal dose, so it says little about archers.

  Improving Mental Skills in Precision Sports by Using Neurofeedback Training: A Narrative Review · Stefano Corrado, Beatrice Tosti, Stefania Mancone, Tommaso Di Libero, Angelo Rodio, Alexandro Andrade, Pierluigi Diotaiuti

• 2024
  Context Review Published later

  The same review reports, on the other side, two archers whose sport anxiety and resilience improve on three questionnaires after eight neurofeedback sessions. These are two people and the figure is second hand, inside a case series.

  Improving Mental Skills in Precision Sports by Using Neurofeedback Training: A Narrative Review · Stefano Corrado, Beatrice Tosti, Stefania Mancone, Tommaso Di Libero, Angelo Rodio, Alexandro Andrade, Pierluigi Diotaiuti

• 2025
  For Archers Published later

  Twenty para-archers of the Indonesian national squad, ten treated and ten controls: two months of 4-7-8 breathing, twenty-four sessions of fifteen minutes, and competition anxiety measured with the SAS-2 falls from 29.0 to 21.2 in the standard bow division (p = 0.011) and from 27.8 to 19.2 in compound (p = 0.004), while in the controls it does not fall, and in compound it rises from 26.6 to 29.0. Five people per division, a regional journal, no direct comparison of the change between the two groups, and performance not measured.

  Deep Breathing Relaxation and Anxiety of Disabled Archery Athletes in Each Different Division · Nada Nadia Salsabila, Boyke Mulyana, Geraldi Novian

• 2025
  For Archers Published later

  Twenty archers from the Malang district squad for the Indonesian provincial games, split into trained and controls without saying how many in each, four weeks of calmness training with breathing, meditation and imagery: anxiety on the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 falls from about 60 to 40 per cent of the scale, while in the controls it stays roughly where it was. The figures are only rounded, with no standard deviations and no statistical comparison between groups, and the venue has questionable editorial standards.

  Analysis of Calmness Training for Archery Sports for PORPROV Athletes in Malang Regency Questionable venue · Ratno Susanto, Dwi Cahyati Anggraeni, Bangkit Seandi Taroreh, Achmad Afandi

• 2026
  For Archers Published later

  Thirty competitive Indian archers aged eighteen to thirty, randomised into imagery, self-talk and control for four weeks: state anxiety on the STAI falls from 45.3 to 33.0 and from 46.1 to 35.3, while the control goes from 44.5 to 43.3, with an interaction of F(2,27) = 15.23, p < 0.001. The journal has questionable editorial standards, the performance test is not described, and some statistics do not reconcile with the means reported.

  Cognitive Arrows: Exploring the Power of Psychological Skills Training in Competitive Archery Questionable venue · Himalaya Tiwari, Pragati Chaturvedi, Bodhraj Kumkaria

• 2026
  Context Archers Published later

  In the control group of that study, state anxiety stays where it was, from 44.5 ± 3.9 to 43.3 ± 4.1, t(9) = 1.10, p = 0.29, d = 0.2. This is the comparison missing from the studies with the largest falls: ten archers who keep training and do not change.

  Cognitive Arrows: Exploring the Power of Psychological Skills Training in Competitive Archery Questionable venue · Himalaya Tiwari, Pragati Chaturvedi, Bodhraj Kumkaria

• 2026
  Context Archers Published later

  The same study gives the baseline, which helps in reading all the others: thirty archers with at least a year of competition come to the test with state anxiety of 44.5, 45.3 and 46.1 on a scale that goes to 80. At a level that moderately high there is room to fall, and that bears on how comparable the studies are with one another.

  Cognitive Arrows: Exploring the Power of Psychological Skills Training in Competitive Archery Questionable venue · Himalaya Tiwari, Pragati Chaturvedi, Bodhraj Kumkaria

Status history

1. 1984 Not studied No one in the registry's bibliography has yet tried to lower an archer's pre-competition anxiety while measuring it before and after a mental programme: the question is not asked.
2. 1991 Contradicted The first attempt is also the best built and it points the other way: eight sessions of relaxation and imagery over four weeks, plus practice at home, in eighteen Greek archers split into trained and controls, and the cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety and confidence measured fifteen minutes before the competition do not change. Relaxation does lower reported tension right after the session, but that effect does not reach competition day. One study only, and it points the other way: contradicted, which is as much as a single paper can carry.
3. 2008 Contested The first result on archers in the opposite direction: six archers of the Taiwanese Olympic team, after about eighteen months of psychological support, come out lower on trait competitive anxiety. It is a before and after with no control group, with values readable only from a figure and no statistics, but it is enough to set studies on archers against one another: the status becomes contested.
4. 2010 Contested A second contrary result, much smaller than the first: three archers from the South Korean national reserve squad do eight weeks of biofeedback, cognitive restructuring and routines before the World Youth Championships, and the anxiety measured before, halfway and at the end shows no trend. These are three cases read off graphs, and they take nothing away from the Taiwanese figure of 2008: studies of archers stay in disagreement, contested.
5. 2011 Contested Three Korean archers aged fifteen, sixteen and seventeen do twenty-four weeks of arousal control with heart-rate biofeedback: cognitive anxiety falls from 2.68 to 2.26, somatic anxiety from 2.67 to 1.92 and confidence rises from 1.85 to 2.85. The figure that explains the rest is the starting point: confidence was very low and the archer who started worst moved most. Three cases with no control, in a regional journal, add to the supporting side but do not touch the 1991 null. In the same year a one-year follow-up of a mindfulness course for archers, golfers and runners finds sport anxiety higher at the end of the course and back at its starting level twelve months later, from 35.7 to 40.4 and then to 34.1, but with the three sports pooled and only four archers among the twenty-five who replied: it is context. It stays contested.
6. 2012 Contested The first comparison with a control group whose result points the claim's way comes from India, but it measures something close to anxiety rather than anxiety itself: in twenty-four university archers, twelve neurofeedback sessions lower felt arousal before competition, from 6.83 to 5.75 out of nine, while in the controls it barely moves. Arousal is not anxiety, so the figure stays context and the status does not change.
7. 2015 Contested The first randomised trial on archers chosen because they were anxious arrives: eighteen Taiwanese university archers do six weeks of computer training to shift attention away from threatening words and towards positive ones linked to competition. The brain's early electrical response to the stimuli changes, but competition anxiety is not measured again after the training, so the study does not say whether it falls. It is context, and the status stays contested.
8. 2016 Contested An Indian randomised trial of thirty national-level archers combines six weeks of psychological skills training with shoulder strengthening and reports competitive anxiety changing in the treated group and staying put in the controls. It gives not a single mean, though, measures trait anxiety instead of pre-competition anxiety and appears in a journal with questionable editorial standards: it reads neither for nor against, and the status stays contested.
9. 2020 Contested Six elite Korean archers do eight sessions of neurofeedback-guided imagery, and anxiety barely moves: cognitive anxiety from 1.88 to 1.85 out of four, down in three archers, unchanged in two and up in one. They started out calm already, and with no statistical tests the figure stays context: the status does not move.
10. 2022 Contested The disagreement moves inside a single study. In forty-five young Malaysian archers split by technique, imagery and self-talk together lower cognitive anxiety from 12.8 to 9.9, self-talk alone from 12.7 to 10.1, while imagery alone raises it from 13.1 to 13.9. Somatic anxiety, by contrast, halves in all three groups to the same degree, and with no control group at all a fall that equal is hardly plausible; the venue has questionable editorial standards and by rule does not decide a status. It stays contested, with one more hypothesis: the direction may depend on which technique is trained. The same year an Indian study of twenty archers finds the anxiety score rising after six weeks of meditation, without the authors saying which way the scale runs: it reads neither for nor against.
11. 2024 Contested After twelve weeks of mindfulness the twelve Hong Kong archers report far less cognitive anxiety, from 19.8 to 13.3, and somatic anxiety, from 16.9 to 12.3, and far more confidence, from 19.5 to 27.0, with large effects. The limitation weighs: the twelve matched controls existed, but they were not given these questionnaires, so the comparison is only before and after inside the treated group. The neurofeedback review of the same year pulls both ways, since it carries two archers whose anxiety and resilience improve after eight sessions and eleven bowling players in whom one short session changes nothing. The status does not move.
12. 2025 Contested The first supporting comparison with a control group measured on the same scales arrives: ten Indonesian para-archers do two months of 4-7-8 breathing, twenty-four sessions of a quarter of an hour, and competition anxiety falls by 27 per cent in the standard bow division and 31 per cent in compound, while in the ten controls it stays put. It is the cleanest result of the set, but it rests on five people per division, sits in a regional journal, and the authors do not directly compare the change between treated and controls. The same year twenty Indonesian archers at provincial games report anxiety down from about 60 to 40 per cent of the scale after four weeks of calmness training, but with rounded figures and in a venue with questionable editorial standards. Together they are not enough to close a question on which studies of archers keep disagreeing.
13. 2026 Contested A randomised Indian trial on thirty competitive archers finds state anxiety falling by about twelve points with imagery and eleven with self-talk, while in the group doing technique only it stays where it was, from 44.5 to 43.3. The direction is clear and the comparison is readable precisely because the control does not move, but the journal has questionable editorial standards, the performance test is not described, and by rule a questionable venue does not decide a status. The conflict with the null measured on national squads remains: contested.

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Research lines

• 52 studiesMental training: what has been tested on archers since 1979
• 56 studiesAnxiety and confidence in archery competition since 1986

Other claims in this domain

• ReportedA larger working memory does not make an archer more accurate3 studies · 79 archers measuredStatus since 2012
• ReportedA longer quiet eye improves shooting accuracy3 studies · 58 archers measuredStatus since 2017
• ReportedA mental profile tells archers apart from athletes in other sports only in part5 studies · 550 archers measuredStatus since 2018
• ReportedA mental training programme improves the elite archer's mood1 study · 16 archers measuredStatus since 2023
• ReportedA mental training programme reduces burnout in elite archers1 study · 16 archers measuredStatus since 2023

See all claims on mind and attention