Tunnel attention

Tunnel attention (attentional narrowing, tunnel vision) is the contraction of attentional span under high arousal and anxiety. In the classic model, rising activation first cuts out irrelevant interference, but with over-arousal the signals you actually need get cut too. The result is an athlete who doesn't see teammates, opponents or changes in the situation.

In team sports tunnel attention appears as not seeing the free teammate, in combat sports as the punch that comes from the side, in endurance sports as fixating on a single sensation. It grows against a background of pre-competition anxiety and leads to inconsistent results. The paradox is that concentrating too hard is as damaging as being scattered.

Attentional style and pre-competition anxiety questionnaires from our assessment set give an indirect measure of your tendency to narrow under stress. High somatic anxiety scores usually accompany the tunnel effect. It is best to interpret the link between attention and arousal with a sport psychologist.

Breathing techniques that lower arousal help, as does deliberate switching between a wide and a narrow focus. Train widening: periodically take in the whole field with your eyes on purpose, rather than one point. Ready-made protocols for switching focus and regulating arousal are in our collection of exercises.

Tunnel attention is the other side of insufficient distraction resistance; a pre-performance concentration routine helps manage it. Most often it is linked to pre-competition anxiety and to not being able to get yourself together at the start. Lowering your overall anxiety usually widens the field of attention back to working range.