The special issue is planned to offer the effective reports concerning stress problems of athletes. The first report deals mainly with the female athlete triad (FAT) that arises from constant and intense exercise, daily dietary restrictions and psychological stress. The second paper proposes to use physiological indicators such as cortisol, indicator of the endocrine system, for estimating the training load of athletes. These kind research, psychoneuroendocrinoimmunological approach, give effective data to control stress of athletes. Third one concerns with consultation for elite athletes. It involves important topics for sport performance, such as consultants competency, resilience, and team resilience. The last article compares the mindfulness acceptance-commitment approach with the psychological skill training. These topics would discuss on the points of their effectiveness and usefulness for Olympiad 2020.

Female athletes are susceptible to low energy levels, hypothalamic amenorrhea, osteoporosis, and a constellation of clinical conditions, which the American College of Sports Medicine has defined as the female athlete triad (FAT). FAT is not only the result of reduced energy consumption due to constant and intense exercise training and daily dietary restrictions but also arises from psychological stress. This paper introduces competitive and daily stressor scales for female athletes, the reliability and validity of which have been verified. Furthermore, research that has investigated the effects of mitigating stress coping in the competitive stress model of Japanese female athletes is reviewed and the effects of FAT on the model are discussed. In addition, this paper considers a study that examined the difference of stressor and stress response scores in relation to the presence of FAT subjective symptoms of rhythmic gymnastics athletes.

Athletes tend to conceal their tiredness for various reasons, including environmental and cultural factors, high motivation to increase their competitiveness, and the desire to be selected for games. Stress evaluation using physiological indicators has been focused as a method of evaluating the stress levels of such athletes. In this paper, we reviewed research that has used cortisol, which is an indicator of the endocrine system. However, athletes regularly perform high-load training; and cortisol as a stress index is susceptible to the effects of exercise, metabolism, and immunosuppression. Therefore, it is necessary to consider its specificity. Moreover, when evaluating stress, it is necessary to consider physical and psychological stress separately. However, this line of research has begun only recently, and future developments are required. Recently, studies have begun to focus on the possibility of recovering from stress by using appropriate recovery methods that correspond to the strength of the stressors. Recovery is referred to as “an inter-individual and intra-individual multi-level (e.g.,psychological, physiological, social) process in time for the re-establishment of performance abilities. Recovery includes an action-oriented component, and those selfinitiated activities (proactive recovery) can be systematically used to optimize situational conditions and to build up and refill personal resources and buffers” (Kellmann and Kallus, 2001). It has been pointed out that the root cause of psychological problems caused by chronic stress is insufficient recovery, rather than stress (Kellmann, 2002).

The current paper is organized with three major themes including 1) introducing sport psychology and performance psychology training, 2) introducing competence for professional psychology, and 3) summarizing stress and resilience research in sport psychology following by suggestions for future performance psychology consultation. Consultation work based on sport science, especially sport psychology and related disciplines have been implemented in sport domain. However, it has been unclear who could be qualify as consultants training athlete, coach, and organization. Performance psychology professionals are required to make sure fulfilling the competency. Applying scientific knowledge and methods to the consultation is a one of the competencies. Understanding the research trend of stress and resilience should be able to help consultants delivering effective service to athlete and coach. Based on recent research, delivering programs to develop individual resilience and team resilience should be able to help athletes, teams, and coaches to deal with performance related and organizational related stress rather than provide them coping strategies. Delivering a meaningful and fruitful program will empower athlete, team, and coach for positive change which may lead to social change. Importance of applying a good theory to practice is suggested.

The present case study examined the effectiveness of Mindfulness protocol for the enhancement of sport performance. The participant was a 20-year-old collegiate athlete. The participant stated that competitive anxiety produced unwanted sensations. Intervention was carried out over 11 sessions (about 60 minutes/session). The results showed that, after the sessions, her performance improved. These results suggest that Mindfulness approach might enhance collegiate athletes’ performance.

This study compared behavioral characteristics and job stressors of operators and managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), examining the causal relations with factors contributing to mental illness. An anonymous web questionnaire survey was implemented targeting 600 individuals including presidents, directors, and individuals above the position of section chiefs of SMEs. Of them, 370 individuals were targeted for analysis, including 143 male presidents with less than 50 employees under them, 140 male managers, and 87 female managers. The covariance structure analysis results revealed that “malfunctional coping” in male presidents and managers had a positive influence on “job stressors,” and job stressors have a positive correlation with “mental illness.” However, for female managers, the path coefficient for “job stressors” with “malfunctional coping” was not significant and was not positively correlated with mental illness.

Thus, male presidents and managers did not seek support from or appeal to others, or tried to do their best without complaining, which heightened job stressors and strengthened vulnerability to mental illness. However, female managers’ coping without seeking support or appealing to others had no influence on job stressors and did not cause any indirect vulnerability to mental illness.

It is expected that preventing burnout in nursing students reduces their dropout rates and nurses’ decisions to leave the job. In addition to reducing negative automatic thoughts, it is necessary to pay attention to rumination, which is assumed to be a maintenance factor, when examining the prevention of burnout. However, the association between rumination and negative automatic thoughts and burnout in nursing students is unclear. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey among 159 nursing students and examined the model hypothesis that rumination promotes negative thoughts and facilitates burnout in nursing students. The results showed that rumination mediated negative automatic thoughts and worsened the effects of burnout. This study suggests the importance of intervening for rumination in order to prevent burnout among nursing students.

The purpose of the present study was to clarify the self-evaluation of social skills against interpersonal fear and the influence of affinity motivation. We also examined what kind of the self-evaluation of social skills contributes to the increase of interpersonal fear in order to grasp the characteristics of interpersonal fear. A questionnaire survey was conducted for 128 university students. As a result of 2 factor analysis, it was shown that people who evaluate their social skills lowly feel more interpersonal fear. It was also suggested that evaluating social skills such as “Relationship Initiation” low especially raises interpersonal fear. Based on the characteristics of young people skills such as “start relationship” and “relationship maintenance” as target skills. It was inferred that more effective intervention would be possible.

In recent years, demand for nurseries has increased steeply, but the shortage of nursing staff due to early turnover is becoming an urgent issue. It is essential to build comfortaable work environments and to reduce their stress to prevent the early turnover. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current situation of workplace harassment in nursery settings such as nursery schools and preschools, as well as the relationship between workplace harassment and nursery staff stress. Participants were 146 nursery school teachers and 80 preschool teachers. The results of the multiple regression analyses showed that the significant β coefficients of the workplace harassment on the subscales of the stress reaction scale such as “Feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty,” “Fatigue and physical reaction,” “Autonomic nerve symptom,” and “Feeling of depression and insufficiency.” As for the type of job, we found that the level of stress among preschool teachers tends to increase when they hold low positions and the number of program staff is low. Similarly, nursery school teachers in lower positions felt more stress at work. Preschool teachers have long hours of working with their colleagues as preschoolers go home early, which may explain teachers’ tendency to have interpersonal stress. Based on the results, we discussed new approaches to improve workplace environment especially for staff in lower teaching positions including provision of consultation service.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression. ASD tendencies (AQ-J-21), PTSD symptoms (IES-R), and depression (CES-D) were administered to 217 high school students who experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake. Responses were obtained from 206 people (45 men, 161 women, with mean age ± SD of 17.3 ± 0.48 years). The result of the single correlation analysis showed a weak positive correlation between the AQ-J-21 and the IES-R and a moderate positive correlation between the AQ-J-21 and the CES-D. This suggested that ASD tendency may be a risk factor for PTSD symptoms and depression. Furthermore, as a result of a multiple regression analysis, “Communication” had a positive effect on the IES-R and CES-D, while “Attention Switching” had a positive effect on the CES-D. This suggested that failure of communication in people with ASD tendencies exacerbates PTSD symptoms and depression, and difficulty in switching attention may exacerbate depression. This study seems to be able to provide basic data on the relationship between ASD features, PTSD symptoms, and depression. In the future, it is necessary to carry out longitudinal surveys and investigate the causality of each factor in detail.

In this study, a discomfort feeling scale to other’s gaze was made based on the free description survey, and the relation with metacognition was examined. As a result, the discomfort feeling scale to other’s gaze consisted of a two factors structure of “anxiety/fear” factor and “irritability” factor. And people who were easily embarrassed by other’s gaze had low self-control ability. Also, females were more likely to feel uncomfortable (especially “irritability” factor) to the gaze of others than male.