IT’S NORMAL TO BE NERVOUS

TURN YOUR COMPETITION NERVES INTO YOUR POWER

1 TABLE OF CONTENTS

...... Performance Anxiety ...... 3

...... Mind-Body Connection ...... 5

...... Mind-Body Connection Exercise ...... 6

8 ...... A Bit of Science ......

10 ...... How to Manage Anxiety ......

11 ...... 10-Second Breath Exercise ......

13 ...... Mental Strategies ......

15 ...... Parents - Supporting Your Athlete ......

...... Works Cited ...... 17 PERFORMANCE ANXIETY WHAT IS IT?

YOU CAN MODIFY We all get a little stage fright sometimes. It can be easy YOUR THOUGHTS to get nervous from all of the stressors that tie into an athletic performance therefore leading to what some call ‘choking.’ Choking is described as a decrease in athletic performance due to too much of what we like to call ‘what you see’ stress. But that is just it – it is what you SEE and imagine to be stress.

‘What you see’ stress often increases in athletes on game day because (1) they have an audience who they want to impress and (2) they have extremely high ex- pectations of their success. We’re athletes. We’re born with extreme drive to want to succeed in competition. It is natural! But, how can we control our own expecta- tions and pressure? We’ll get to that later…

The bottom line – it is rarely the external situation that causes stress but rather the way the athlete’s self-talk describes the situation. Negative or doubtful self-talk creates feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear. For athletes who choke during the competition, it is important to understand that these thoughts can be modified, ad- justed and controlled with MENTAL practice just as we improve athletically with physical practice.

#TRAINYOURBRAIN 3 MIND X BODY “”

HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY IMAGINE that the mind and body are noth- ing less then completely and utterly intertwined! Actions effect emotions, thoughts effect physical outcomes and ability. We are constantly using this mind-body connection every single day. Start to learn more about the connections within your own body and you’ll soon realize a whole world of opportunity that is yours for the taking.

- OLYMPIC MEDALIST

4 MIND-BODY Anyone that has suffered some form of stage fright CONNECTION knows that anxiety is not just something your merely think in your brain. Anxiety is something you feel in your body. There is more to this ‘mind-body’ connec- YOUR BODY IS tion than meets the eye. ALWAYS LISTENING. There are three important aspects of the intimate con- nection between our thoughts and our feelings. It’s when we can properly understand these insights into our OWN nature of emotions that we can use them to tame the beast that is performance anxiety.

The mind-body connection is:

• Reciprocal. Your state of mind affects your body, but your physical state also affects your state of mind… so much so it is not always possible to draw a clear line between mind and body or to discriminate which leads and which follows.

• Specific. Every mental state tends to produce a par- ticular physical state and every physical state tends to produce a particular mental state. Try it out: Smile for 1 minute.

• Automatic. Some responses are so deeply ingrained in us that, whether by predisposition, habit, or condi- tioning, they are triggered without our permission or conscious intention – Crazy, right? TRY IT OUT ON THE NEXT PAGE #TRAINYOURBRAIN 5 TRY IT FOR YOURSELF

Try the following exercise to get a feel for the power that your OWN MIND can have.

1. Stand UP with your feet shoulder width apart. Take both arms and raise them so that they are perpendicular to your body, shoulder height, palms facing each oth- er approximately shoulder width apart.

2. Take your left palm and rotate the palm only so that it is facing up. Next, make sure that your right thumb is pointing straight up.

3. Imagination time! So get creative and stay with us! Close your eyes and imagine in as much detail as possible that in your left hand you have an EXTREMELY HEAVY book in your left hand. Imagine that attached to your right thumb is a string and attached to that string is a large balloon that is filled with a great deal of helium.

4. Repeat to following to yourself three times very slowly “My left arm is getting heavier and heavier and falling.” Next repeat the following three times, “My right arm is getting lighter and lighter and rising.”

5. Visualize with your eyes closed that your left arm is lowering and your right hand is raising.

6. Open your eyes – WHAT HAPPENED?

THE PURPOSE: What you think right before competition will have a tremendous impact on how you end up feeling. Did you notice that your left hand and arm felt much heavier or more tired than your right? If you did, you were able to create a real, physical state just by using your imagination.

YOUR TURN MIND – What are you thinking before your performance? BODY – What happens in your body when you get nervous? • Muscles begin to tighten. • Breathing speeds up and gets shallower. • Digestion shuts down leaving you feeling nauseous or queasy. • Hands & feet get cold as your blood flow is taken away from your arms and legs. • Heart rate and blood pressure goes up. PERFORMANCE – How is your performance affected by these physical changes?

6 VISUALIZATION “” VISUALIZATION HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN IMPORTANT PART OF MY TRAINING SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING. My favorite example is after my freshman year at Texas A&M I wanted to set a higher goal for my 100 . I decided I wanted to break the American record set by many years prior. I thought choosing a “sandwich” number 57.75 would be fun and really easy to remember, so I started writing it down everywhere! I wrote it on my hand, my bathroom mirror, my notebooks, my water bottle... I even had it as my email password (it’s been changed since...). I had a healthy obsession. I would visualize my race before going to bed, I would visualize the perfect race and winning, and the worst pos- sible case scenario and then still winning. When the end of my sophomore year rolled around, I felt so confident going into my races because I had already swam a 57.75 in my head over 200 times, so it almost didn’t even feel like a big deal. When I finished my 100 breaststroke final with a 57.71, earning my first American Record, it felt like the most rewarding moment of my career at that point. Visualization is a powerful tool. If you create the powerful mindset that you can and WILL achieve what you’re after, there’s nothing that should stop you. Just be PATIENT and KEEP VISUALIZING YOUR DREAM!

- BREEJA LARSON OLYMPIC SWIMMER

7 A BIT OF Many think there is only one type of nerves that they #SCIENCE have felt. Actually there are many different types that arise during many different situations. If you hav- en’t caught on, performance anxiety is an intricate, HAVE NO FEAR, THIS IS multi-faceted being – that is why we’re making a whole REALLY COOL NERDY BOOK on it! So, if we begin to break it down, there are STUFF THAT TELLS YOU three components of performance anxiety. WHY YOU’RE BRED FOR PERFORMANCE. • Cognitive – your mental response to a situation. An increase in self-doubt, worries, thoughts and images of failing, loss of focus, blanking, etc.

• Somatic – your physical response to a situation, usu- ally caused by what you’re thinking. Heart pounding in your chest, blood pressure goes up, you start breath- ing more rapidly and shallow, muscles get tight, cold hands, and so on. Everything you can feel.

• Affective - your emotional response to a situation. You may feel a sense of apprehension about the situa- tion. You are perceiving what the situation is, physically and mentally reacting to what is going on.

Understanding this three-part model of anxiety is im- portant because it means that there are three separate targets that each affect our ability to perform well un- der pressure.

We also want you to realize that we cannot just address ONE of them and expect everything to be all better.

8 The further understanding you have of all components, the more self-aware one will become and the more one can learn to handle all three. Being able to know your own ticks and triggers and how to calm yourself down = growth in resilience and empowering confidence to be an independent athlete. A BIT OF AROUSAL CONTROL = MANAGING PRE-COMPETITION “HYPE”

When we are feeling nervous, we may feel that we do not have control over our thoughts and bodies. We see competitors that re stronger than us, our thoughts begin to race, breath becomes short and our heart starts to pound. Learning to read your level of pre-competition excitement/nerves is an important first step in getting yourself back in control.

In the below diagram, you can see what it looks like to have your physical, mental, and emotional states all in check. This is when we have A-GAME performance. The diagram also shows when these things are out-of-whack and when we have lost con- trol.

As you can see, when you move from left to right on the horizontal excitement scale, your level of pre-competition physiological arousal increases. This scale goes left to right, from being completely relaxed or under-aroused, to completely freaked out and over-aroused.

“Good nervous” describes a feeling of being excited, anticipating the competition and feeling CONFIDENT that you’re up to the challenge. Remember…no matter what state you are in during competition, it IS possible to get into this “good-ner- vous” sweet spot.

THAT’S RIGHT

You have the power to change your attitude, mind and body at any point. If you feel that you are in anywhere but the ‘sweet spot’ have no doubt, because all is not lost.

9 HOW ATHLETES MANAGE ANXIETY – TRY IT OUT

OKAY.

By now we are hoping you have a pretty good idea as to what performance anxiety looks like and feels like. But, how are YOU supposed to remain calm, cool and clutch to perform your best? We’re here to help.

We’ve made the point that anxiety shows up in many forms, so we have to TACKLE it in many different ways. Here are just a few:

PHYSICAL

PROGRESSIVE MUSCLE RELAXATION • Muscle tension is the most common symptom of too much nerves. This is the most crippling physical symptom because if your muscles are tight and stuff, you won’t be able to perform at your highest level. Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is helpful because it allows you to regain control of your body and to make you feel more comfortable physically and mentally. This is most effective when you can carve out 15 minutes – bedtime is ideal! Listen to our script here.

How are you feeling before this exercise?

How are you feeling after the exercise? What differences do you notice between when before and after you completed this exercise?

How can you change this exercise to work for YOU for when you are feeling ner- vous?

10 10 SECOND BREATH

Breathing exercises can be helpful to calm our body down. It is a simple way to tell your body “hey, I know you’re nervous but CHILL because I got this”. Try out our short exercise to get you in game ready mode.

Before starting this exercise, how do you feel? (physically and mentally)

THE EXERCISE: • Be in a comfortable sitting or standing position. If seated, have your feet planted on the ground • Put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your upper chest • Close your eyes • Take a slow deep breath in through your nose, send the breath down to your stom- ach and try to move the hand on your stomach out while minimizing the movement in your chest • As you inhale count to four, stretching the inhale over the full count • Exhale through your mouth over the full count of six • Repeat

How do you feel AFTER this exercise?

How and when can you practice this? (example: at practice, a meet/game, before bed, etc.)

11 BREATH “”

AFTER MY OWN RESEARCH AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM CLOSE FRIENDS AND FAMILY, I DISCOVERED MY BREATH AS SOMETHING TO CALM MY MIND AND FOCUS MY ENERGY on the moment at hand. My breath became the pace of my visualization. The air is so smooth and light, just like I wanted to swim through the water. Moving with the rhythm of the inhale and exhale, I allowed thoughts to move in and out of my mind, and my breath carried in joy and peace and pushed out tension and negativity. As I practiced this mental preparation, I found greater joy in my sport and my energy during workouts and competition increased. The breath is something I still use to re-set my thoughts and release tension when I feel the stress of life.

- OLYMPIAN

12 MENTAL / EMOTIONAL

• Now, all of these physical exercises can calm us down mentally, but what about actual mental strategies?

• When we get nervous, we tend to think negatively. How can we CHALLENGE those negative thoughts and change them for the better? The small act of down right be- lieving in yourself goes a LONG way. Try out our thought reframing exercise.

Think about an event you get nervous about (can be at school, at practice, or com- petition) and fill out the following steps:

1. Pay attention to your thoughts.

Often we do not realize how negatively we talk to ourselves. (ex. I can’t do this, I am not good enough, etc.) What are your thoughts about this event?

2. Notice when these thoughts typically occur.

This allows you to catch and manage negative or untrue thoughts. Do they happen at the event? Before?

3. Challenge negative thoughts.

Asking a few questions can be helpful: What would I tell a friend in this situation? Is there another way to look at this situation? What is the real evidence that my thoughts are true? What would my first step be to cope, if my worries turned out to be true?

4. Replace negative and untrue thoughts with more realistic or helpful thoughts. (ex. I know that I am nervous, but I know that I can do this)

13 LANGUAGE “”

I SWITCH FROM NEGATIVE TO POSITIVE SELF TALK BY THINKING ABOUT THE WORK I’VE PUT IN TO ACCOMPLISH A GOAL OR TASK. I don’t want the time and energy I invested into something to go to waste, so why would I allow myself to be negative before the one chance I have to prove how good I truly am? Positivity is everything.

- OLYMPIC SWIMMER

14 PARENTS – It can be frustrating to watch your athlete not perform SUPPORTING well when you know how hard they work. As you can YOUR ATHLETE see, there is so much more to sport anxiety than some may believe, so the common phrase of ‘don’t be ner- vous’ doesn’t do much to relieve pressure. How can you support your athlete through their sport perfor- YOUR ROLE IN YOUR mance anxiety? CHILD’S SPORT ANXIETY. Athletes play their best when they play for the love of their sport and their own internal desire to challenge and improve themselves. Meet them where they are! They will constantly compare to those around them. Simply reminding them to compete instead of com- paring will make them feel confident that you are sup- porting them.

Reduce the Importance of Winning – as we see a lot of the stress athletes face is from their perceived envi- ronment and their own pressure. Your athletes want to impress you! Encouraging them to focus on other as- pects of the competition rather than solely on winning will relieve some of this stress

15 ENCOURAGE THEM TO FOCUS ON:

• The importance of improvement and playing to the best of one’s ability

• To help athletes focus on playing well, set realistic goals to improve specific skills. As they accomplish goals, the can feel proud of their performance wheth- er it was a win or loss.

• Compliment on efforts, instead of final outcome

• As athletes realize that you are happy with improved effort and skill rather just winning, they will feel less pressure.

EMPOWERMENT OF BEING AN INDIVIDUAL – encourage your athlete to devel- op their own self-awareness of skills they have gained – physical or mental. This will enhance self-confidence and facilitate the transfer of these skills further in their life. Even though they are your child and you know everything and anything about their behavior – they are the expert on themselves.

• Provide support with questions – being more inquisitive rather than judgmen- tal provides more of a supportive feeling. What did you learn today? Tell me about the best experience you had today? What were you thinking about be- fore the competition today? Providing questions like these allows them to tell you a bit more of what is going on and you may learn a little more, too!

16 WORKS CITED

Williams, J. M., & Krane, V. (2015). Applied sport psychology: Personal growth to peak performance. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Goldberg, Alan. Swimming fast when it counts the most: An interactive swimmer’s guide to developing mental toughness. Amazon Digital Services LLC: 2012.

QUOTES: Rebecca Soni, Olympic Medalist Breeja Larson, Olympic Medalist Elizabeth Beisel, Olympic Medalist Lacey Nymeyer, Olympic Medalist

PHOTOS: Volleyball Player: Michelle Figgy by Photographer Lukas Shultz Rebecca Soni poolside: courtesy of ROKA Sports Caroline Burckle underwater: Steven Lippman

COLLABORATION & CONTRIBUTIONS: Corrina Nickerson, RISE Athletes Content Developer Keoni Glory, Ebook Layout & Worksheet Development RISE Athletes CEO & President : Rebecca Soni & Caroline Burckle RISE Athletes Olympian Mentors

FORE MORE INFORMATION, VISIT: www.rise-athletes.com

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