How tennis helped me with my anxiety
Those who suffer from chronic anxiety know the feeling: sweaty, cold hands, a racing heart, and that heavy weight on your chest making it hard to breathe—all without any rational explanation. I didn’t know I was suffering from anxiety, but I knew these sensations very well. They had been part of me for as long as I could remember.
Over time, I developed strategies to cope. Keeping everything under my control helped. Having a routine helped. Creating hypothetical scenarios in my head helped.
If I fail, will I be fired? Probably not. And even if I were, would it be an issue? No, I have some money saved, and I have a good reputation in the market. Even if things get tough, I have tech skills. I’m a decent programmer. I can get a job in tech. It might sound odd, but creating a chain of probabilities helped calm me down.
By 2022, however, this wasn’t working anymore. I was barely sleeping, extremely anxious, and I couldn’t figure out why. Professional help wasn’t making much difference either; I later realized that finding the right therapist is hard and very personal.
On the fourth night of almost no sleep, I turned on my TV looking for the most boring thing I could find—I can get excited about almost anything. I stumbled upon Eurosport and saw tennis on a blue surface. I thought: I know nothing about this sport and it seems boring enough. I ended up watching the whole match. For some mysterious reason, I felt calmer afterward and slept like a rock.
I had just witnessed the first round of the US Open, and two weeks later, I was not only celebrating points but also had favorite players and found myself thinking: What can I use to turn my brain off?
I learned later that there are tournaments happening all the time. What luck.
What Playing Tennis Taught Me
From watching to actually playing took about a month. I was curious, but I had never been good at sports and thought it was ridiculous to learn a new one in my 30s. But after some encouragement from my girlfriend and a particularly stressful day at work, I mustered the courage to call a local tennis school.
I’m not the best at everything, but I strive to be. I wasn’t good at sports, I was out of shape, and I knew tennis was hard—I’d seen the best in the world play.
On the other end of the phone, a guy told me: “You know this is a very technical sport, right? The first three months’ goal is just to be able to hit the ball.” His words, although simple, struck a chord. If that was the goal, I thought, maybe I could achieve it.
Having something I wasn’t good at, but could improve with time and practice, and knowing I’d never be the best at it—not even in my class—was surprisingly liberating. Sure, my ego took a hit every time a 50-year-old with a beer belly beat me, but instead of discouraging me, it motivated me to schedule another game to have another shot at winning.
But the real lesson tennis taught me was this: If I let the errors I made linger in my mind, I knew I would never play well. If I messed up a serve and let the thought of my poor serve take root, I’d never serve well again.
Tennis made me repeatedly tell myself: “You failed, it’s okay. Now move on. Forget it, or you’ll never be able to play the game.” And most importantly, enjoy the game.
Did tennis miraculously cure my anxiety? No, of course not. But on particularly hard days, when I’m panicking about something I’m about to publish and worrying about missing some crucial detail, I find my mind reverting to that tennis mindset. “If you keep dwelling on the possibility of failing, you probably will. And if you let anxiety dominate, you won’t enjoy the ride.”
So, should you play tennis to alleviate your anxiety? Maybe not. But if my words resonate with you, I’d advise finding something where you can fail. Something you don’t want to fail at, something that upsets you if you do, but something you can improve on. Something that forces you to forget the mistakes you made and focus on the next challenge.
I found peace in the feeling of hitting a ball with a racket, in getting sweaty and covered in orange clay dust, and in landing a backhand right in the corner, out of reach for my opponent.
I hope you can find your tennis too.