The purpose of the present research was to study the effect of neurofeedback training on the anxiety of elite female swimmers. To that aim, 20 professional swimmers were selected through purposive sampling and were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. The procedure of the research involved 12 sessions (45 min per session) of neurofeedback training with two protocols: (1) increased SMR activity and decreased high beta and theta activity, (2) increased beta activity and decreased high beta activity. Before the training, the pretest was administered using SCAT and then the posttest was administered. Two-factor analysis of variance (2 2) was applied for data analysis and the results were: the main effect of test and the interaction between test and group were significant, but the main effect of group was not significant. Given the significance of the interaction between test and group, correlated t-test was applied to compare the pretest and posttest scores of each group. The results indicated that there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group in anxiety. Yet this difference was not significant in the control group. Correlated t-test was also applied to compare the two groups in the pretest and the posttest. The results revealed that in the pretest there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of anxiety, but this difference was significant in the posttest. It can thus be concluded that neurofeedback training reduces anxiety in elite female swimmers.
