Tools to Help with Sports Anxiety

Missing a tackle. Dropping a pass. Standing at the line knowing every eye feels locked on you. For some athletes, that pressure is not motivation, it is panic and it can hijack performance, health, and the ability to enjoy the sport at all.

We sit down with Michael Schiferl, a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist and the owner of Trailhead Counseling Services, to talk about sports anxiety and performance anxiety in a way that is practical and honest. 

Nate gives his personal story of dealing with sports anxiety and how it derailed his lifelong love of playing sports.

We dig into the difference between normal nerves and a bigger problem, including red flags parents and coaches can watch for like nausea, GI issues, chronic tension, fatigue, appetite changes, withdrawal, and the mental spiral of catastrophizing and rumination.

Then we get concrete. Michael explains “above-the-neck” anxiety (the thoughts) versus “below-the-neck” anxiety (the body) and shares tools athletes can use right away: diaphragmatic breathing, muscle relaxation, grounding through your senses, and even quick temperature shifts like cold water to jolt the body out of fight-or-flight. We also talk about why avoidance quietly makes anxiety stronger and how exposure to mistakes and embarrassment can retrain the brain over time.

We close with what to say and what not to say to an anxious athlete, plus how to find a therapist who fits your values using consultations and resources like Psychology Today. If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a coach or parent, and leave a review. What part of sports makes you most anxious right now?

Transcript

hy Sports Anxiety Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh, welcome back to the show. Um we're very excited about today's episode. It's gonna be a little bit different. Instead of just listen to me rant about sports, we've got our first interview today. We are gonna be talking about sports-related anxiety. Uh everybody gets nervous in sports. That's nothing's uncommon about, you know, before a big game getting the butterflies. But sometimes it's more than butterflies. Sometimes it severely impacts a person's uh athletic performance, their enjoyment of the sport, and their overall quality of life. You know, if you're having an issue where every practice a kid or an adult is extremely nervous, that's a problem. You know, you don't you don't want to have to be living like that. So today on the show, I have a friend of mine from way back, Michael Schiffel. He is a licensed clinical family and child therapist, and he is gonna be able to give you a lot more expert opinion on um ways that parents and coaches can identify this type of problem with children, what some things they can do to help that. If you are a person who suffers from this, we are gonna see, you know, are there some things that you can do to help mitigate some of those problems? And I'll also give you a little bit of a background with me, my experience with this topic and why it's important to me. So, Michael, thank you very much for joining the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. So, Michael, tell us just a little bit about yourself, what you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, so like you said, I am a licensed um married to family therapist in Kansas. I own a small group practice called Trailhead Counseling Services. Um, and so we specialize in working with men with a variety of mental health disorders. Um, PTSD, OCD, and anxiety are a couple of them. So, yeah, have some experience working with people with sports-related anxiety. Um, like you said, definitely can have a big impact on people. So glad I'm here to be able to talk about the experience of it.

athan’s Story Of Performance Anxiety

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Well, we definitely appreciate you being here. Michael's a good guy. Um, I met Michael back in college. He uh was actually my roommate's friend going to a different school, and pads crossed several times, ended up both being groomsmen at his wedding. That was fun. So it's been a minute since me and Michael have been even virtually in the same room, but uh we're excited to have the conversation today. So I'll guess just a little bit of my experience with this. I am a person who has uh always struggled with anxiety in general. As a kid, I didn't have any idea what that was. My parents didn't know what that was. We everyone could tell there was, you know, something a little bit amiss. It was uh very clear to my parents early on that I had OCD, but you know, nobody really knew what was going on. It was just, oh, Nathan gets really nervous, Nathan gets worked up about things, Nathan worries. And uh typically in sports, because that's primarily what we're talking about, I loved sports. I've been a sports crazy my whole life. That's all I wanted to do as a kid. I uh wanted to be a professional NFL player. I uh spent all my time pretty much when I wasn't, you know, doing normal kid things, watching Power Rangers or whatever. I played football. And even if I lived in a neighborhood where there weren't any kids, sometimes I did, you know, I would just go out and throw the football and run and try to catch it myself. That's what I wanted to do and I loved. And I was a relatively athletic kid. I probably wasn't gonna make the NFL, but you know, I could have been a decent football player or other sports, but what I always ran into was I would get what we just called nerves. And I would get to the point that, you know, I I remember my mom was gonna take me to a race one time, like a mile run or something for a kid. And I was getting so sick to my stomach, I just had to stay home. And I had stuff like that happen frequently throughout my life as a kid and and um all the way up into high school and everything. And where it really got to the point where it was disrupting my quality of life was when I was in high school and I was playing football, I started my practice and everything before the season going pretty well. And then all of a sudden, I just felt sick all the time, and we could not figure out what was going on, you know, and I started losing a lot of weight, and I could not catch a cold. I went from playing relatively well to it it went beyond the typical anxiety, typical nerves that I felt, which for me it wasn't just games. It was every practice, every workout, every warm-up, everything. I was just as tense as I could possibly be. And it got to the point where like I couldn't catch anything, I couldn't do anything properly on the football field, and I ended up losing over 20 pounds in a few months. And uh, so I just kind of got to the point where I just couldn't do anything. And uh where it really reached ahead for me was I was in a junior varsity game as a freshman, and I was playing cornerback, defensive back, and I hated playing defensive back or wide receiver because I felt like all the eyes were on me. If I played a position that was like in middle school, I had played on the defensive line, that I was totally comfortable with. Like nobody, I didn't feel like the entire game rested on whether I made a tackle or not. But at corner, you miss the tackle or at safety, the guy's gone. And so I would just, I was just freezing. Every time I would go to make a tackle, I'd say, well, the guy can go left, he can go right, he can run into me. I don't know what to do. I would just get paralyzed, and the guy would go around me and get a huge gain. And I had that problem pretty much anytime I played defensive back. And so we were at halftime of that game, and one of the coaches got on to me pretty good in the huddle, you know, what are you doing? Why aren't you making the tackles? And I was a very quiet kid. I never back talked. It was yes, sir, it was no, sir. I barely spoke. I finally had just reached this breaking point where I was so frustrated that I just kind of shot back at him and said, You think I'm trying to do this? You know, you think I don't want to make the tackle? And he looked really shocked, you know, that I had come back at him because I didn't ever say anything. And he just left me alone after that. And I ended up kind of developing a relationship with him a little bit, that he kind of helped me out with some things later on down the road a little bit. But I think he could see, okay, something's wrong. You know, this isn't normal. And I kind of reached this point, and I won't go into this too much, don't want to be overly personal, but that this became a thing that was severely impacting my life and my quality of health. And what I felt was I let my teammates down. And that's how I felt every time was that the weight of the world was on me. And if I didn't do well, we were gonna lose. My teammates weren't gonna like me, you know, I wasn't gonna go to play college football. Every play, every practice, every throw, you know. And so I got to a pretty dark place, to be quite honest, especially after that game, and was really struggling with what I would call depression. As I, what kind of has helped me and helped me at that point in my life was largely faith, uh, really rediscovered Christ, really changed my life as a freshman sophomore in high school. That helped me with a lot of things. It did not make anxiety go away. It did not make sports anxiety go away. It just made me have purpose and perspective and more joy. And so, uh, but going forward, I still struggled with sports anxiety. I had a situation, I think it was my sophomore year, I decided to run track. Uh, same, I was on a at a different high school at this time. I had a track meet where I did not do as well as what I should have. And my old football coach from the other school was there with his team. He came up and said, Hey, what, you know, my my coach from my school was trying to talk to me and he said, Hey, what's going on, man? He's like, I I know you're faster than that. Why? What's going on? And, you know, I just told him, I don't understand. I cannot run as fast as I can in a track meet. What is going on? And I never got that figured out. The my whole time in high school, I never got it figured out. But I also, you know, I had a situation where I dropped a baton in a relay. Well, you're out if that happens. And so my coach was talking to me after the meet about it, and I we were just in a restaurant after the meet, and I was about to just burst out in tears in the restaurant as like a 16-year-old guy. And I was like, I could, I just you know, eyes are water and everything. And he just looked at me, he's like, you know, it's okay, you know, like it's not that big a deal. And, you know, this was just something that went on my whole time through school. I still struggle severely with anxiety. Uh, it has gotten better with sports as I've aged. Thing, it's not as important, you know, everyone's not gonna hate you if you mess up. And, you know, I'm not trying to be a professional athlete anymore. So there's a lot less pressure, and I I don't struggle with it near as bad, but just as a person who struggles with anxiety in general, um, sometimes I play an ultimate frisbee league. Sometimes I get really nervous just to go play pickup ultimate frisbee or whatever. But that's more a general anxiety thing. So what's helped me is getting older, uh, having more confident situations where I'm like, hey, I I can do this, and it's not that big a deal if I mess up. No one cares. And so I do want to tell one other story. I'm taking a little bit too much time with myself here.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

This is giving us a lot of good things to talk about, man. You're you're this is totally fine.

ow To Spot More Than Nerves

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, a little context. You're someone who has these maladies, I guess. But um, so I have with me this is a professional football player's glove from the Atlanta Falcons. When I was in middle school, uh indirectly, really, I got this at a game from one of the players. So um, so I in my freshman year was I I couldn't, my hands were bricks, which was frustrating because I had me and my dad, I tried to get my mom, any friend I had, even friends who didn't like sports, just playing by myself. I was working on catching the football constantly as a kid because of how bad I wanted, I loved football and how bad I wanted to play college and pro football. I could catch, I had good hands because I had been doing it my whole life. But in practice, game, whatever didn't matter, I couldn't catch anything. So finally we decided I gotta try something. And this was before, you know, kids were wearing, you know,$50 football gloves and stuff all the time. And so we said, hey, we'll try the NFL gloves that I got from the player. Maybe it'll, maybe that'll help. Well, it did. I felt a little more confident. I felt a little less anxious. And when me and my dad were warming up throwing, you know, before practice, before a game, I was I was making more catches. So I was like, okay, you know, maybe this'll work. The problem was uh they're made for an NFL player, not a 14-year-old kid. And so they were way too big. And uh, you know, my fingertips weren't reaching the ends, they were baggy. And so I was in a junior varsity game, and no one was covering me on a play. There just was no one there. And so I just looked over at the quarterback and he looked over at me. And instead of running the route I was supposed to run, I just like took a step, turned around, he threw me the ball. I caught it. So awesome, finally, made a catch. You know, and so I take off running, and I was pretty fast at the time, so no one was going to catch me. Well, I'm about 20 yards down the field, and I totally lose the grip on the football because I have these gloves. The ball, I'm not kidding, I should have had a football here. Ball flies up in the air. If you've ever seen the play um, I believe it was maybe the 2007 AFC Championship game where the Colts came from way down against the Patriots. Reggie Wayne had a play like this. Ball just goes and he had to wait for it to come down. Ball just sails into the air. I have to just stand there and wait for the ball to come back down. Oh no. I get the ball, take off running again. Well, problem is that everyone's had time to catch up to me. So I make it to about the one or two yard line. Guy starts jumping on my legs, grabbing me, and everything. I am fighting for dear life to get into the end zone because I had I literally never scored a touchdown in in high school football. So I was fighting for everything I was worth to get into the end zone, and there's just too many guys so close, and they got me, tackle me right at the goal line before I could get in. And it was all because, like, if I hadn't had this situation and hadn't been wearing the gloves, I would have just scored a touchdown. But I was so anxious, I was like, I need something to help me. So, anyway, a little funny story there. And, you know, that's a situation where I didn't have the high school football career I wanted. And I ended up quitting football after my freshman year when went to the other school. I mean, what was the point at that point? And I also like football eats a lot a lot of time, and because faith had become so important to me at that point, I wanted to make sure I could go to all the church stuff. And so I was like, this is what I'm gonna do now. So um, anyway, but I was able, I coached a flag football team for a while with little kids upward flag football, which that's some of the most joy you can have is to see your players do well. But I had a kid who is a really good football player, but he just could not score a touchdown. He would always get caught right before he would score. He was really quick, but he maybe wasn't the fastest straight line speed kid. And he was really discouraged about it. And they thought I was a great athlete because I was in high school and they were, you know, eight years old or whatever. And I told I was able to take him aside one day and say, you know what? I never scored a touchdown in football my whole career. And he was like, really? You know, and it just I was able to talk to him and encourage him. So that was the thing. Obviously, I would have liked to have scored a touchdown, but it was able to help a kid later on. Not everybody, you know, scores all the points. That doesn't mean, you know, it's not fun or whatever. So anyway, that's me. Now you've heard way too much about me for the last 10, 15 minutes. So now I'm going to talk to Michael, and we're gonna ask some questions, uh, get Michael's feedback on some things. I got my list of questions here. So um my first question for you, and I think you would be able to really speak to this, is how can parents and coaches see when a kid is or player is having more than just being nervous? And I say this in the like what we talked about. We did not figure out that I had anxiety until I was in college. We didn't even know what that was. And I started having panic attacks. I thought I was having heart attacks, you know, I thought I was dying. And so I had no idea what was going on. And that is when I figured out, okay, this is a thing called anxiety. A lot of parents, especially back when we were kids, didn't know what this was. Now it's a little more prevalent, but so how can a parent, a coach, or even an athlete themselves pick up that I'm not just nervous, this is something that I need to get checked out.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah. Well, dude, first of all, thanks for being so vulnerable and sharing your story about that sports anxiety. And I think those are such common experiences that you know, we don't realize other people are feeling the same way uh as we are, especially I always say, you know, anxiety attacks what you care about most. And so when you're in middle school and high school, sports feel like the most important thing in the world. So that makes sense that it was showed up for you in such big ways when it was something you you really, really cared about. So I'm glad, man, you've been able to find some relief from that, even though you still struggle with some generalized anxiety. I'm glad sports had become enjoyable for you again. Yeah. And so with your question, so I guess there are a lot of things people can uh look out for. One of the things that we typically or people typically wouldn't think about when it comes to anxiety is checking for somatic symptoms or like physical symptoms. So you'd mentioned, Nathan, like um getting so upset that you would feel sick to your stomach. So that's a really common symptom of anxiety. So like unexplained nausea or GI issues, um chronic like um soreness or pain beyond like normal like muscle soreness. So if a kid is constantly tense or tightening their muscles because they're anxious, that can make them kind of chronically sore. Um, unexplainable fatigue. So if your body is in that fight or flight mode all the time, you're gonna be really tired beyond what you would typically expect for um even like a high school or middle school athlete. Then also like changes in relationships. If you notice like your son or daughter or an athlete distancing themselves from people they care about, a lot of times that can be because of anxiety or depression, and also changes in like um appetite. So high school athletes should be eating a lot. If there is an athlete who is picking at their food or you know, uh not eating very much, that could be a sign of anxiety as well. But so those would be like more of the physical things we look out for. Some of the mental um symptoms of anxiety. So something you experienced, Nathan, was called catastrophizing. So making a mountain out of a mole molehill. If I don't perform at 110% in this practice, it means everyone is gonna hate me. I'm never gonna be in the NFL. But if someone is saying things like that, that is their anxiety taking a small, small problem and turning it into uh, you know, this horrible dilemma. So that's a really common sign of of anxiety. Um also just kind of fixation on like the night before a big game or practice, if that seems like the only thing they can think about, or um they're kind of ruminating on it, like they aren't able to take their attention somewhere else, that's probably a good sign they're struggling with anxiety as well. And then last thing I'd say, I guess similar to your experience, Nathan, if it just seems like they're not enjoying the sport, like you know they are a passionate athlete, they love the game that they're playing, but when it comes to actual practices or competitions, if it just seems like they're not enjoying it, there's probably something more going on than just, you know, I I'm a little nervous about this. Uh, it could be that anxiety is taking something that should be a lot of fun and turning it into a miserable experience for them.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah. And as you're as you were saying that, you know, I'm nodding and stuff because it's like every bit of that, you know, was like, yep, yeah, you know, I felt that, felt that. I ended up, you know, my season got ended prematurely because I was like, I was having so many problems and so much pain and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

And, you know, it's not like I had been hit excessively. It was just, you know. And so, yeah, I mean, and the lack of appetite, the fatigue, you know, like I said, you know, just felt like I was sick all the time.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

You know, your weight loss too, like unexplainable weight loss, like 20 pounds is pretty significant.

aith Shame And Mental Health Myths

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah. I had gotten up to, so in spring practice when we were weightlifting and stuff like that a lot as a freshman, I had got up to like I think they finally weighed me in at 147. By the time we weighed at later in the year, which it's not totally uncommon to lose some weight during the season, but I mean, when you're 14, 15, you shouldn't be losing a lot of weight. Right. And I I was in the 120s. Yeah. And so it was like that's a lot of weight loss in a few months. Or whatever. So um, yeah, I all of that definitely makes sense to me. And it does. It totally just steals the joy of the experience. And that's something that as a person with anxiety, I I like what you said about it attacks what you care about most. For sure. It's always seemed that way for me. Stuff that I care about a lot is what I get fixated or worried about, or it meant something, you know, I for me, just as a person with general anxiety, like it might be like something you really enjoy, or say you want to buy something, or whatever, it'll be like, no, don't buy that, or don't, you know, just really fixate it on don't enjoy the things that you enjoy. And that's not normal.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Like as Christians, like it's very common for anxiety or OCD to attack our faith, too. Um, which I always tell people that that's a sign that like you really care about this and love Jesus. But um that can make even faith feel really, really hard when your anxiety is is starting to attack that.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Yes. And that's that's something for me that's been, you know, and and I don't want to make the whole show about me, everybody, but I'm I'm just you a lot of you out there and a lot of your kids and your athletes and stuff are going through this and they're not talking about it or you don't understand it or whatever. I'm I'm trying to tell you as somebody who has lived it, that it can really mess up your life. And uh, you know, OCD anxiety, that's something that really messed with my faith. So my ninth, tenth, eleventh grade year, you know, faith was really, really big for me. So that then later became a thing where all of the obsessions, all the anxiety started becoming centered around faith issues, moral issues, things like that. And it's just exhausting. I mean, and it it makes it hard to want to read your Bible, hard to want to pray, you know, hard to want to go to church and worship and things like that. And whatever it is that you like, that you care about, anxiety and OCD can take that from you if you allow it to. And you a lot of times you can feel completely powerless to stop it. And so you might have a child or an athlete who you're like, what is going on? They might have some stuff going on in their head and in their heart and really their body that, you know, is really heavy, and they might need you to take some initiative or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

But uh, I will say this too. This is a hill that I'm willing to die on, and there are probably other Christian therapists who would disagree with me, and that's okay. Like, you know, I want to be amicable to them, but um, you said that your faith didn't make your anxiety go away. And I've heard a lot of people who have experienced harm because a pastor or another therapist has told them, you know, this is a sign that you lack faith or it's a sin issue. In my opinion, that's just not true. Um a lot of research shows that anxiety is multi-layered, complex, uh, a mixture of genetics and your personality and the environment you grew up in. And so just because you are a Christian with a solid faith does not mean that uh you will never experience anxiety or OCD or other mental health struggles. So that's my that's my little 30-second soapbox that again, I could talk all day about that. But yeah, again, that's that's something that I just want to put out there. I uh that can make the symptoms you're having feel so much worse when you question, like, is this because I'm not faithful enough or I don't love Jesus enough? And you know, there's there shouldn't be a place for that sort of shameful narrative when it comes to mental health.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah, and I'm glad you said that. Like I've heard that from pastors and and people before, you know, oh, all that should go away. All anxiety is a sin. And in a way, anxiety can be a sin, worrying is can be a sin, but there's a difference in just, you know, worrying about something or, you know, not trusting God. And this thing that kind of seems beyond what you have any control over, and your body having these physical responses that you're not aware of, you know. A lot of times for me, it wasn't conscious thoughts, it's not conscious thoughts now. It just is, you know, and it can be things your diet can impact it, you know. For sure. Anything can impact this type of thing. There is a biological element to anxiety and everything. And and so I totally agree. Obviously, I'm not the expert, but you know, yeah, just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you're gonna not have anxiety at all.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Well, in some ways, you are the expert because you you have the lived experience of it. Like you have gone through it and are sort of on the other side. So you you do have some expertise in like, you know, actually living it.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Yeah. And it can be really easy to let it dominate your life. I mean, for me, I probably have let it do that way too much in my life. And I've gotten a lot of times where I just avoid things because it's easier than, you know, having a panic attack or, you know, feeling anxious or whatever. And, you know, so that's something, you know, you have to be aware of and keep an eye out with I would say probably with your kid, if your kid is avoiding things, not wanting to be involved in group activities or or things with their friends or things they used to like, that could signal that something's wrong. Yeah.

voidance Makes Anxiety Stronger

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yeah. Anxiety always makes us want to avoid the things that bring up anxiety. And that avoidance brings about some temporary relief. Like it feels better to not confront that thing in the moment. But long term, it reinforces that that situation is actually dangerous. And so the next time you encounter it, it's going to be even harder to do it. And so, um, yeah, that's why we typically encourage clients with anxiety. Like, don't avoid the things that make you anxious, but bite there or confront them in small chunks too. Like, you don't have to do the big scary thing all at once, like work your way up to it. But um even though it feels better in the moment, avoidance is going to make your anxiety way worse in the long term.

ractical Tools To Calm Your Body

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah. And I mean, that that would probably make sense with a lot of things. I mean, whether it was anxiety related or what, you know, if you refuse to address something or refuse to do something that you're afraid of, you know, that it's only gonna get worse. It's not gonna go away. So uh, so this is a little bit of I'm getting a free therapy session here, but but anybody who really knows me knows that I'm bad about that type of thing. I'm not a very social person. But um another question I have is what are some tools for managing sports-related anxiety players can use, whether they're kid, adult, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Yeah, that's a good question. So there are a lot of different techniques that you can use, and typically a combination of them is helpful. What works for one person isn't gonna necessarily work for another. And so I'll tell clients it's kind of like throwing cook spaghetti at the wall. We're gonna throw a bunch of things at it and see what sticks for you. So there's I kind of break it down into two different categories. There's what we call above-the-neck anxiety, so that's like the thinking or overthinking, catastrophizing, ruminating, racing thoughts, all the anxiety symptoms that are in your head. And then there's the below-the-neck anxiety, more of the somatic symptoms, you know, sick to your stomach, sweaty palms, heart racing, those sorts of things. So with the above-the-neck anxiety, a large part of what we focus on is changing the way that people interpret their anxiety. Anxiety feels really scary and unpleasant. And so it's normal when you start to feel anxious to try and figure out what's wrong, why am I feeling this way, am I in danger? Those sorts of things. But what we try to reframe anxiety as is it's an uncomfortable feeling, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong or that you even really need to pay attention to it. In doing that, we can kind of break the anxiety loop where people start to get anxious about being anxious. Um, instead of being anxious about being anxious, they move to a place where they uh notice anxiety as an unpleasant sensation, turn their attention elsewhere, and just kind of let it be. That doesn't make anxiety go away altogether. We we can't do that. We need anxiety to a certain extent, but it does take away some of the worry, again, the anxiety about being anxious. So that's kind of above the neck anxiety, um, reframing your relationship with the anxiety is something that is unpleasant, but not necessarily harmful, and not necessarily something we need to pay a lot of attention to. Below the neck anxiety, we do um more physical interventions to help with those physical symptoms. So one of the best things you can do is diaphragmatic breathing, or we call it belly breaths. So slowing down your breath and as you breathe in, pushing your diaphragm and your stomach out. And then as you breathe out, letting your stomach fall back to its original position. When we're anxious, we typically take short, shallow breaths into our chest. Um, kind of like if you're hyperventilating, or if you get like startled, you'll take a quick um breath in and your chest is gonna raise really quickly. That type of breathing is signaling to your brain, even subconsciously, that we're stressed, we're anxious, something is wrong. And so your brain's just kind of humming with a low level of anxiety. If you are intentional about changing the way you you breathe, slowing it down, and again taking those belly breaths, that's gonna start to signal to your brain, oh, your body's relaxed. That must mean our environment is safe and we can calm down. Um, sometimes like short bursts of intense exercise will also help with anxiety. Um, really sudden temperature changes. So specifically um cold exposure. So splashing cold water on your face, taking a cold shower. Um, I've had people talk about holding cold lemons or frozen lemons. Um, shifting from yeah, kind of that hot to cold can almost kind of jolt your body out of that physical sensation of anxiety. Um, the last thing I'd say too is like just relaxing your muscles, similar to your breathing, if you are walking around with really tense shoulders or um a tense neck, that's gonna send those subconscious messages to your brain that you're anxious. And so if you spend a couple minutes just relaxing the muscles in your body, starting with the muscles in your face, working your way down through your torso, through your arms, your legs, down to your toes, that can help your body calm down and feel less anxious too.

rounding Without Judging Sensations

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Does that all make sense? Oh, totally. Yeah, that's all really good stuff. And I hadn't I definitely never heard about like the cold lemons before. And yeah. One thing that I will say is that is a the temperature thing for me has always I get more anxious when I'm hotter, especially inside. Like if I'm hot in an in a room or whatever, I'm gonna be a lot more anxious than if I were cold or whatever. And one thing I don't know if this would be with the same type of deal with anxiety sports anxiety, but something when I've been going through OCD uh therapy before, uh, was, and I don't do it near as much as I should. I am not good at these types of things, but is these grounding techniques. So what one of my previous therapists had told me to do was say you're on a walk, just let your observations be what are your sensory, what are your senses telling you. And then don't make a judgment about whether that's good or bad, which is very difficult to do if you have anxiety or OCD. Just observe them. What do I smell? What do I feel? What do I hear? So you can say, I I hear this bird, or I hear that bird, or I hear the sound of my foot going on the sidewalk, or I feel the heat. And maybe I don't like it, maybe I do like it, whatever. But you just you just observe as a third almost a third party. Is that something you think would be helpful in this type of circumstance?

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Yeah, 100%, man. Like I imagine um like someone on the football field and they're feeling really anxious about the next play, as you're walking to the the line from the huddle, just notice what do I see? What do I smell? Can I smell the turf or the grass? I feel the sun on my skin. And the key is, like you said, not to make judgments about those things. The the judgments is where we can feed the anxiety loop. Whereas if we just accept it as this is what it is, that helps pull your brain out of that anxious space into more of a place of the acceptance of this is what I'm experiencing right now. It's not good or bad, it just is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

And I think that's a lot of it, you know, like like you said, it once there is anxiety, it feeds on itself. And even if you recognize that you're anxious, that might be another thing to feed on itself. Which generally speaking, I would say it's probably good to say, I'm anxious. This is not, you know, I'm not having a heart attack. I have no history of heart problems, you know. Like this is I oh, the one thing I didn't say that would be really good for the sports anxiety. When I started running track, okay, so before the season had even started, I started having all kind of chest pain. Yeah. And I had been running my whole life, you know, it's not like I had a heart problem or anything like that. It got to the point where I had to go to my coach after a practice and say, um, look, I haven't said anything about this. I'm I'm having chest pain and stuff, and I need to. So I went, got the EKGs done, got, you know, an ultrasound done, and they couldn't find anything wrong. They were saying, Well, on your EKG, we are definitely noticing what looks like an arrhythmia, but it doesn't look like it wasn't a structural thing. It was my anxiety. And so, like, they had me wear a heart heart monitor for a month, and I was all hooked up and everything. And it turned out, you know, you don't have a heart problem. But that didn't stop me from different times in my life being like, oh, I'm having a heart attack. You know, yeah, it feels awful, you know. You feel like something's really wrong, but you do have to, you know, think about things. Like I I would say, like, for me, one of my big ones is, oh, I'm getting, I'm getting sick. You know, I need to get out of here because I'm feeling sick. And it's like, how statistically speaking, how many days of your life are you really ill? You know, not very many. And yet for me, it's like every day, you know, I don't feel well. You know, that's probably not an illness. It could could be you don't have control over all of that, but most of the days of your life you are not sick. Yes, you know, and so that's I don't know if that's helpful or not. It's something you can talk to yourself about, you know, yeah, try to calm yourself down.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

But you were spot on me when you say, like, it's okay to name anxiety, like we don't want to deny what's happening because that creates a whole different set of problems with you know, denying your feelings, and and that is never helpful. But just yeah, naming it like I'm anxious and that's okay. We uh we'll use an analogy sometimes of like an unwanted dinner guest. Like you imagine you're having a dinner party and someone who you find annoying or unpleasant shows up. If you spend the night trying to keep them away from your friends and family, or trying to avoid them, or trying to get them out of your house, you're gonna waste a lot of time and energy when you could be spending it just enjoying the party and accepting like that person's here, I don't like that they're here, but I can tolerate that they're here and then just enjoy the rest of the night, if that makes sense.

mbarrassment And Exposure To Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Yeah. And something I think would be relevant for this discussion, especially with kids, high school, or stuff like this. What I one of the things that I struggle with, and I haven't really talked to people about this much, or or really I something I'm still figuring out and working through is a lot of my anxiety is around being embarrassed and or being embarrassed in front of people, you know, something bad happening, or me messing something up in front of other people. And something that I'm having to work through and learn and what would might be helpful is there are probably going to be embarrassing things that happen to you in your life. There is no way to completely avoid all that. Guess what? Embarrassing things happen to everybody, and everyone gets sick, everyone messes up at some point. You know, your friends, if they are real friends, are not going to not be your friend anymore because you messed up on the football field or you got sick and had to go home or anything like that. Everybody understands that that's something that happens. And, you know, I sometimes I think of it as like, how would I react if this was another person who did this or whatever? If I was an athlete and my teammate dropped a pass, I would not come over there and berate them and say, I hate you, you're not my friend, you blew the game. That's not how most athletes react. That's not how most people react to situations. You would comfort that person and say, hey, it's okay, we all mess up. But when it's you, you feel like everybody is going to be mad at me or oh, this is so embarrassing or whatever. And uh you could argue in some ways that's just an egocentric way of looking at things. The world doesn't revolve around you, you're not the main character, and everything that you do is not world-defining, you know, it just really isn't. And so that's something I'm having to work through. And if you're an athlete or know an athlete or whatever, if they drop a pass, it is not the end of the world. You know, it's really not. And it's hard to get that through to somebody. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

But that's where, man, sometimes with anxiety, like, yes, our thinking is very, very helpful. And sometimes we just have to do the thing that we're scared of to teach our brain that it's not that big of a deal, or that we can really handle like the worst case scenario. So and this also brings back kind of that piece of avoidance. So if you are an athlete who is so, so anxious about dropping a pass and you work so hard to make sure you never drop a pass at all, your brain is going to continually tell you it is going to be life-ending if you drop that pass because you're working so hard to reinforce it. You're like, yes, I agree. I'm going to do everything in my power to never drop a pass. What would actually, it sounds counterintuitive, but be most helpful is for you to drop the pass, feel the anxiety and the discomfort that comes with that, and then through that learn, hey, I can tolerate this feeling of dropping a pass. And also the worst case scenario that I thought was going to happen, didn't. Does that make sense? Yeah. Exposing ourselves to the thing we're afraid of and confronting it, a lot of times is where we start to find some relief from from that anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

Yeah. And, you know, if if you are a teammate and you don't have this problem, or if you're a coach and you this is not your issue, this is something that an athlete who is dealing with this, they need you to not criticize them. They need you to not, you know, ostracize them of, oh, so-and-so ruined the game for us, or whatever. You know, if you do that, you are feeding, then it's going to get worse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Well, I think about your coach who uh in that middle school, middle school or high school football game, who's like, what are you doing? Like, why can't you tackle? It's like that is not what you needed to hear in that moment. I'm sure he was coming from well-intentioned place, like a very normal thing for a coach to say, but you probably needed someone at that moment to say, hey man, like, you know, we love and care about you. No matter what happens, if you miss every tackle the rest of the game, like you are still okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Yeah. And when so, in that situation, you know, and I won't get into it too much, but like I'm probably 14 years old. When you're at that age, everything feels huge. And there's a lot of emotions, and there's hormones, and there's anxieties. And um, that was a day I have never forgotten the rest of my life, how I felt after that game, and how just sick with myself I felt about letting my teammates down. And I I was talking on Facebook with one of them after the game. And, you know, it was it was reaching, I don't want to get into this too much, but it was reaching dangerous levels of depression, of guilt, of, you know, over something as simple as missing some tackles. And that is a weight that a you wouldn't think a kid has from a high school football, especially a junior varsity high school football game. They they do because everything's a big deal then. Everything's the end of the world. They can't see that, oh, I'm gonna live to be whatever age and a million different things are gonna happen. All they can see is that right then.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Telling them too, like, this is not that big of a deal, or, you know, oh, five years from now you're not even gonna remember this probably is not what they need to hear either now. Because they just don't have context for that.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Well, it's kind of like if you tell a kid they're 15 years old and you're like, hey, this is probably not the person you're going to marry. It's, you know, it's not that they're just gonna go, no, I love this person. I will die for this person, you know, this is the end of my life. And, you know, you you can't really do it that way. I remember I had situations where my sister would tell me something, you know, and I would just be like, do the complete opposite, because it was my big sister telling her. For sure, for sure. And she was right, but and she's gonna love hearing that, but you know, so well, uh I'll go to the next question so we don't run out of time. Um, okay, is sports anxiety? This is one I've been thinking of a lot, different from other types of anxiety issues. Is there a way to identify it as different, or is it really just another aspect, another manifestation of a general anxiety issue?

SPEAKER_02 46:18

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think it the way that we would approach sports anxiety, the way we treat it, is similar to treating other types of anxiety. Uh the same sort of exposures, coping techniques, cognitive reframing. So in that sense, it is um uh you know similar to other types of anxiety. Where it might be different from, like, say generalized anxiety, generalized anxiety is where you are just constantly having this low hum of anxiety and you are um always more anxious than calm. Sports anxiety is more just context, um, and they could coexist at the same time, too. You could have both. So that would be like the one key difference is sports anxiety is a very like focused type of anxiety. Uh generalized anxiety is more an anxious about everything in life in general, but treating them would be would be very similar. Okay. And probably someone who has one is gonna be more susceptible to the other. It it's I would say it's more likely that they kind of co-occur than for one to be exclusive, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Yeah. And I would venture to say if someone's had an experience where maybe they messed up or something on in a sport, you missed a shot, whatever, that that would then lend itself to possibly becoming an issue of sports anxiety or whatever. Yeah. That I I played upward, I've never been a good basketball player. I played upward basketball in middle school. And then when I was in high school, me and one of my friends spent like every day of the summer for years playing basketball. And I never got very good at it. I'm just not a good basketball player. But I was good at defense, and so like in upward, I would play great defense, get a steal, go taken off down the court, and I would get down there and look at the basket. There's nobody in front of me, and just fling it and go. I barely ever scored any points because I would be so like anxious about it and everything.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Dude, when I played basketball, the worst feeling was when I got past the ball. Like, what am I supposed to do with it? Yeah, no, no, you take it. Yeah, please don't give me the ball.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

I was playing pickup basketball with some guys from the church a year or two ago, and every time I got the ball, I would just pass it. I much prefer to just pass the ball. And I remember I passed it. A guy who's really good passed it back to me. I pass it again, he passed it back to me, and he's like, just take the shot. And I shot it and I hit a three, and I just tried to play it off all cool, you know. But really, I was like, I hit it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

But you know, so I don't I don't know what this says about my psyche, but I'll occasionally have a dream that I'm back in high school playing basketball, and that same feeling of, oh no, I have the ball, what am I supposed to do? And just find an open teammate and pass it to them and you know, try and avoid getting past the ball again.

hat To Say And What Not

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Yeah. And basketball it is, it's kind of like uh a wide receiver or on a kickoff or anything. It's just like everyone's looking at me. For sure. Um, yeah, that for me, dude, I don't understand. And someone could probably have a field day with this. One of the things that I dream about the most often is high school football. And I only played, I played middle school for a couple years, I played high school for one year, and I dream about that all the time. Wow. And I guess it's probably something of like, I wish I could go back and play and not be a basket case, but you know, right. Sure. But okay, uh, okay, so here's another question I had. Are there helpful and unhelpful, we talked about this a little bit, things to say to someone who's struggling with sports anxiety?

SPEAKER_02 50:09

Okay, so are there helpful and unhelpful things to say to someone with sports anxiety? Um, unhelpful, a couple of ones would be just get over it, it's all in your head, it's not that big of a deal, trying to rationalize it. A lot of times with anxiety, people can think rationally about it, like understand, I know this isn't that big of a deal, but my body is responding as if it is like life or death. So those sorts of things, again, very well intentioned, but they don't really have a lot of um they don't really help people with anxiety. Uh, they know those things typically already, and so that just kind of creates a cycle of shame where they're like, well, great, I know I'm not supposed to feel this way, and I can't stop it. And so I I'm a loser because I have this. What is simply more helpful is some of the things you were saying, Nathan, is like expressing like acceptance for them, like, hey, we love and care about you no matter what. Um, sometimes just shutting your mouth and listening is the best thing you can do. Um sometimes people just need you to like be with them in the middle of that. There's nothing you can really say to make and go away, but helping them understand like you're not alone and whatever you're carrying is the is the best thing you can do. I do think too there can be there can be usefulness in sharing your um experience of anxiety, like you did with your player when you coach upward football. What you don't want to do is uh share your experience and then turn that into a conversation about yourself. Because I've seen that done before where you got very well-intentioned trying to relate to them, and then suddenly it becomes uh discussion about this is my anxiety. If you share, make sure the the focus gets turned back onto them. Yeah.

inding A Therapist You Trust

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Well, I know you need to hop off. Do you have time for one more question or do you need to go? For sure. Okay. The the last question I had, and this is not really even sports rank anxiety, this is in general, and this is not a Christian show, but you and I are both Christians, and so this is a a question we might have here. Um, if you, a friend, a child, whatever, say you are a Christian or some other person of a religious background, a lot of parents, or even not, a lot of parents and athletes, kids are afraid to go to a therapist, psychiatrist, because they might be given bad advice. There are people out there who will um, I don't want to get into politics, but this has become an issue in the political realm of you send your kid to a therapist and they might diagnose them with a condition they do not have and set them on a dangerous pathway. What are some things you could say to a parent athlete about encouraging them to find a therapist if they're worried about that and how they could find a good therapist?

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Yeah, that's a really good question, man. That's totally valid. Like if I was going to send my children to therapy, I would want to send them to a Christian who shared our worldview. Um, thoughts similarly about different issues, that sort of thing. So it makes perfect sense. Um, I would say it's similar to anything in life. Like, there are going to be people in any profession who share your faith and who don't. And so the same way you would approach um those sorts of situations, do your research. Um, most therapists will offer a free consultation and make sure they're a good fit for you. So ask them hard questions in that consultation. Make sure that they are answering ways that feel good to you and align with your your beliefs. Um and don't be scared of of therapy in general. Like we are here to help you guys. Um, we do not have this hidden agenda. Um yeah, we we are in this field because we desire people to know Jesus and to to have an abundant, flourishing life with these different skills that he's uh he's given us. And um yeah, so I guess similar to anything, it's okay to do your research, find someone who's a good fit for you. One really helpful website is something called Psychology Today. Um, it has a extensive directory directory of therapists in every state. And so you can filter based on the issue that you're having, your location, insurance, um, faith orientation. And so that can help you pare down pretty quickly who are some some candidates for a therapist, and from there reach out, have that consultation, ask them hard questions that they should be able to answer, um, and go from there.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

That's great stuff. Um, I know you got to hop off here. So, Michael, thank you so much for joining us. Michael is our first guest, and uh it's gonna be hard to top you uh as a guest going forward. Oh, thanks, dude. So really appreciate it and what you're doing. And hey, shameless plug, give your the name of your uh organization again one more time. Thanks. Yeah, it's trailhead counseling services in in Overland Park. Overland Park, Kansas. So if you are in that area, that's a used to be my neck of the woods for a while. Uh check him out. And so thank you, Michael. Appreciate you being here. Thank you for having me, man. Yes, and anytime, anytime you want to be on. And thank you if you uh made it this far through the episode. Thank you for watching. Uh, be sure to subscribe. We'll have more content coming out. So thanks, guys.