A new piece of research has explored the impact of stress on League of Legends pro players, and the coping strategies they employ to handle them.
The report, published by the International Journal of Esports, consists of interviews with 12 Master to Challenger players who earn their main source of income through competing in esports. They described experiencing stressors regarding competition in five main areas: performance expectations, internal evaluation, team issues, audience/social media and environmental constraints.
Players described their own demands as ‘having high self-expectations, wanting to play without mistakes, win the finals and win for a teammate’, and that they associated their dreams and goals in esports with ‘high pressure’.
One player described the pressure he put on himself to succeed as ‘the worst’.
Interviewees also reported various team-related stressors, including lack of confidence in teammates, internal team criticism and pointing fingers at one another, and teammate evaluation of ones’ performance. A lack of confidence in teammates was associated with an increased pressure to perform.
Players responded differently to audience and social media stress. For example, one player said that he could not relax immediately after competing due to media interviews, and another said he experienced great pressure from a live audience ahead of playing.
“The moment you realise there are so many people watching you, you know it’s real. It puts more pressure on you, but for me it was a pressure that made me perform. That made me give my best, so it motivated me – insanely.”
Pro League of Legends player, anonymous
Two players also referred to this stressor as something positive, including one who acknowledged that a live audience pressure made him perform better.
He said: “The moment you realise there are so many people watching you, you know it’s real. It puts more pressure on you, but it put the pressure on me, it wasn’t like a pressure that makes you not perform, but it was a pressure that made me perform. That made me give my best, so it motivated me – insanely.”
On social media, one player acknowledged social media comments that caused him to feel bad about mistakes he made during competition. On the contrary, one player found the pressure from social media motivating – as he wanted to disprove social media statements that he is “overrated”.
Another player added the lack of training hours as a stressor he experienced. In addition, two players reported that a stressor faced in competitive settings was an unprofessional environment, for example having no coach or manager around at certain times.
Stress responses acknowledged by interviewees were most prominent prior to and after competition. Participants expressed being excited, anxious, nervous, tired, and/or physiologically aroused prior to competition.
For instance, one player reported sweating, stuttering and shaking before competition, whereas another described his stress as making him ‘more aware of his surroundings and more in the moment’.
In general, the players spoke about reactions being most prominent before competition, then decreasing after the first minutes of gameplay.
Coping mechanisms for stress in League of Legends
Pro players reported a range of coping strategies falling into six themes: social network, attention regulation, self-regulation, increasing effort, consumption strategies and dissociation.
Some players said that discussing expectations with their coach and talking about their feelings was important.
The players also used various self-regulation strategies to regulate pressure and stress. These included ‘using sleep, meditation, self-talk, cold showers and partying’.
One player said he employed the following routine to handle stress: “Lately, I have started about an hour before the game, I have a ball and I play around with it a bit. I toss it up, I throw it against the wall, I walk around in my room a bit. Do a little sport about 15 minutes with the ball and then I go and take a cold shower. After the cold shower I lie down in my bed and breathe in and out consciously for a minute, and then I get a little nervous, but I hardly notice it.”
In addition, two players spoke about visualising gameplay prior to competition, while three highlighted physical exercise as a strategy to deal with pressure or frustration after performance. One said that physical exercise is ‘one of the best things to actually cope with stress’.
Dissociation and avoiding pressure
Pro players used strategies to avoid pressure such as behavioural or cognitive distancing, especially during competition.
Players sometimes played more passively to avoid making mistakes, avoided thinking about the mistake or stopped talking to teammates.
Given better communication is one way of dealing with internal team issues, such as criticism between players, the report stated that esports teams ‘might benefit from interventions designed to build trust and communication, and in turn, overall team functioning’.
In conclusion: Training & support is key, but more research needed
The study concluded with a few key points: pro players reported social media as a stressor, they employed coping strategies such as drinking coffee before competition or eating fruit between games to combat feeling tired.
“However, more research is needed to understand the impact of reported stressors and coping strategies on esports players, both in terms of performance and overall mental wellbeing,” the report concluded. “Finally, results of the present study suggest that players should systematically learn how to recognise and regulate associated stress responses.
“Delivering psychological training or support should focus on long-term strategies to enhance success. Since esports is currently defined by quick and constant changes in teams, members and coaching staff, different ways of delivering support strategies need to be explored.
“To achieve a more holistic understanding of the stress-performance relationship (in LoL) and provide specific psychological interventions, it is necessary to also investigate stress and coping in non-competitive settings (for example during training and the off-season).
“Furthermore, we acknowledge that the results only address male players. Although this reflects the current demographic situation among professional LoL players, future studies might also address stressors, perceived stress responses and coping strategies in professional female players.”
Who were the participants in the LoL stress study, and who produced it?
The 12 participants (kept anonymous) were male and aged between 19 and 28, and spend between 28 and 91 hours per week playing the game. The majority of the players were from Germany, while one player was from each of the following: Czech Republic, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK.
Inclusion criteria for this study required participants to be competitors in the second German division or higher, that competing is their main source of income, and that their last competition took part at least three months ago, they have a minimum of three months’ experience of playing competitive esports.
To gain a ‘true and non-judgmental account’ of players’ subjective experience of stress, participants were told that the aim of the study was to investigate subjective experiences of competing in esports, and the words ‘stress or perceived pressure’ were not used by the interviewer.
The report was put together by Oliver Leis and Anne-Marie Elbe from the Institute of Sport Psychology and Physical Education at Leipzig University, Franziska Lautenbach from the Department of Sport Science at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Dr Phil Birch from the Institute of Sport at the University of Chichester.
Further reading: In a similar report published a few months ago, CSGO was found to be the most stress-relieving shooter, according to University of Leeds study on heart rates and blood pressure.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
