Top 10 Ways to Overcome Ranked Anxiety

Do you have trouble sleeping at night while images of what happened in your last ranked game run through your head? Was that last game during Season 3?

Does the thought of selecting a role before the champion select even begins fill you with dread?

If so, you're among legions of players with ranked anxiety.

Introduction

Do you have trouble sleeping at night while images of what happened in your last ranked game run through your head? Was that last game during Season 3?

Does the thought of selecting a role before the champion select even begins fill you with dread?

If so, you're among legions of players with ranked anxiety.

You Are Not Alone

However, you don't have to live forever in fear of losing LP. We're here to help.

Check out our list of remedies, if not the cure:

Ask Yourself: "What's the worst that can happen?"

Are you scared of being graded based on your ranked performance and "characterized" as a league lower than you think you deserve? Well, nobody believes you're worthy of the rank until you achieve it anyway. Get out there and DO IT!

Visualize Winning

Look at it. It's beautiful. Cement this in your head.

Hype Yourself UP

After visualizing the victory screen in your mind, start thinking about how you will achieve it. Are you going to lean back and hope your team carries you to victory? NO! You're going to put four terribad players on your back, dominate the five on the enemy team, and end up with 9 honors for how amazing everyone thinks you were.

Focus on Small Goals

The goal above is lofty; it's a stretch goal. However, you should also keep a few back-up goals in mind. Some examples are:

• I'm NOT going to be first blood.
• I'm NOT dying to a turret this game.

Easy Peezy.

Queue Up With Friends

They say misery loves company, and if you're miserable playing solo queue it could be that you can find someone else that is too. People love to complain about how awful their teammates are, and if you duo queue with a friend, it's easy to stay motivated and keep pushing onwards.

Be Positive and Assume the Best

Even if your teammates are awful and Riot hates you individually as a player, stay positive. Make up stories about players in the game if you have to.

Wow. My mid laner is 0-5, well, it could be worse considering he's laning Faker.

My jungler DC'd? That was probably Superman. He'll probably be back soon, if not hopefully he saves the world.

Initiate Habits 

Many professional athletes have rituals they perform before playing. Some people give a quick prayer, some people rub their lucky shoe horn. Maybe yours will be locking your bedroom door or putting on a set of headphones. 

Whatever it is, make sure it's lucky!

Get Enough Sleep

The number one cause of poor mental performance is lack of sleep. If you're not getting enough sleep and playing into the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning, your ranked performance is going to take a hit. Make sure you're not playing tired and especially not falling asleep at the keyboard.

If you do fall asleep at the keyboard and wake up to your teammates threatening to report, just tell them you're Superman and just saved the world. Don't report Superman. That's messed up.

Expose Yourself to the Fear

One of the main ways for people to get over fears in general is to expose themselves to it. While you might be uncomfortable playing ranked on your main account, maybe you can play on a secondary account. If you can get to a high enough rank with your second account, this may alleviate your fears to play on your main. Again, pointing to the first technique, what's the worst that can happen on a side account?

Don't Expect Perfection

I know we've hammered away at hyping yourself up and thinking positively, but let's be honest, some ranked games are worse than others. Even if you're playing at challenger level, some players are going to perform poorly. Maybe they didn't have enough sleep or maybe they're laning against Faker. Don't expect everyone to perform amazingly just like you don't expect yourself to go 50-0 every game.

Just remember, there's nothing to it, but, to, do,,,,,,, it.

Got more tips for getting over ranked anxiety? Comment below!