Let's Talk: Sophie's Squad - Athlete Mental Health and Cognitive Performance

A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE!

Dr. Bethany and Dr. Norah were invited onto the Let's Talk: Sophie's Squad to chat about mental health and cognitive performance as they apply to athletes. Whether you are an athlete yourself, a coach, or the parent of sporty children, this episode is filled to the brim with information and advice for optimizing mental performance during game time, cultivating mental toughness and healthy mindsets off the field, and using sports to support a healthy, high-performing mind no matter what challenges you pursue.

Sophie’s Squad provides education and awareness to improve the mental health of athletes by encouraging open conversations and emphasizing that seeking help is a sign of strength. For more information, check out https://sophiessquad.org/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Let's Talk Sophie Squad, where we have honest conversations about mental health in sports and remind athletes, parents, and coaches that the sport you play is only a portion of who you are. Today we're talking about something every athlete has. It's their mind. We'll explore what science tells us about mental health, how our brains respond to pressure, and why confidence comes and goes, and what practical tools athletes have and need to use to perform and be their best selves. We're joined today by Dr. Nora Kennedy, a clinical psychologist, and Dr. Bethany Rains, a cognitive neuroscientist, both of Introspt Labs. Thanks so much for being here. All right. So thanks for being here today. It's great to it's great to have you both. Thanks. Um so let's start with some of the basics. Uh people often use the term mental health and mental performance sort of interchangeably. Um so can you help us understand the difference between those two things?

SPEAKER_02 1:01

I love that like we're here because it's I feel like we are the in the personified difference between those two things a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I overlap in both, but yes, we absolutely can. Um, you know, sometimes I think the easiest way to understand mental health is how we understand physical health, right? In and of itself, it's a neutral thing. But we can have good physical health, we can have bad physical health, poor physical health, right? So mental health is the same, but it's more focused on our psychological, emotional, and social well-being as compared to what physical health focuses on. So mental health is more so like how are we functioning just in our day-to-day, coping with things, managing stress, things like that. Mental performance, which is definitely B's um primary area of expertise, one of many, I'll say. Um, but mental performance is more focused on you know optimiz optimizing our mental capacities, right? Using kind of all those tools under like high pressure, high stress situations. So they're distinct and the factors and mechanisms behind them are different, um, but they can absolutely overlap as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yeah, I like to think that mental performance sort of feeds into your mental health, big picture, but we're never diagnosing necessarily like a disorder in mental performance or or anything like that. It's it's really a little bit more of a spectrum of how things work together. Um, so there's a lot of physiology and all of that involved with it. But to Nora's point, they definitely bleed together.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Okay. Yeah, that does make sense. Um thank you for clarifying that for sure. Um, so you know, we talk a lot about uh, you know, just obviously helping support athletes. Um, what would you say is one thing that, you know, if you could speak to athletes, coaches, parents, um, what's one thing you would say from a brain perspective uh that you would want them to know from like a physical brain perspective?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Uh for me, I think when you're talking about athletes, a lot of times you're talking about people who are very high-performing individuals. You know, they tend to be really interested in doing their best, being competitive, hitting those personal goals. And there's a lot of this sense of of the grind, of the focus, the willpower, the discipline. Um, but from a brain perspective, I think what is just as important, if not more so, especially during performance, is letting go, is doing less and and not being quite so involved. You kind of have to let a little of that control up and trust the process. Uh, that's not to say that there's not a lot of discipline involved in the prep and the background of that, but when you're actually in the process and you're there, if you want to hit that zone, um what we call flow state, uh, you really have to make sure you're not, you know, really um trying too hard with that conscious part of your brain.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah. What happens when an athlete's brain is under pressure? Like you guys are the scientists behind this, right? Um, I'm super curious on you know how that works.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

When you're talking about sports, um, and this happens with musicians as well, but I'll stick to sports because obviously, um you very quickly get to a point where you're uh involving so many complex involvement, you know, across different parts of your brain, lots of movement, lots of sensory, there's a lot of precision, there's a lot of you know, ongoing sort of coordinated movement. It's it's a lot. It's a lot like just like a symphony in your brain. The part of your brain that's all about control, discipline, uh, conscious awareness, that's your prefrontal cortex, right? That part that a lot of us know about is our sort of our big brain, that executive brain. Yep. It's really useful and it's very powerful, but it's also incredibly capacity limited.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

And it does not take long when you're playing a sport and you're starting to get to a level of achievement that you completely bypass what that PFC can do. You're just blowing its capacity out of the water. So you have to rely more on those unconscious processes, what we would call muscle memory in a lot of kind of non-technical contexts. Um, because as soon as you bring in that prefrontal cortex, and I think this happens with pressure because the prefrontal cortex also jumps into the game when you're worried, scared, we call it hyper-vigilance, and it starts to pay really close, focused spotlight attention on things. Well, that's you know, I call it in one of our um earlier podcasts that we've done, choking your flow. Like you, it just completely just kind of stomps the doors down on all of that vast sort of symphony that needs to happen. So when you overthink it, well, suddenly you can't really do it the way that you know you can. So unfortunately, that what what you can consciously control as an athlete is actually your downfall. You have to like rely on that unconscious aspect of your brain, which can be a little scary.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Um, but it's where the real fruit lies.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Yeah. Okay, so how how does one exercise and and do that, I guess, then? Like being conscious about it, right? Knowing first and foremost that this is happening. Um, but then what is that next step, or what could we work on?

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Uh you know, a lot of athletes will recognize what I would say that the best way of doing this is is those reps in the back end, your repetition. Anytime you want to create strong neural pathways in the brain, you have two ways of doing it for the most part. One is through intensity, kind of like one big bang experience. Sometimes we'll call that one trial learning. Um, and the other is through repetition, lots of little ones. I've always compared creating neural pathways to kind of like creating a road or a path. Like first you're looking at the woods, it looks like there's nothing. You might walk through, and now you've kind of pushed the grass down, there's a little bit of a path. You walk it again, it's a little easier to see. You keep walking it, now you have like a hiking trail. Over time, you can pave it, right? And now you've got this like road that everyone's gonna take. It's the easiest way through. Your brain works a lot like that. And so you can either like plow through and make a freeway all at once. That's the intensity, or people just gradually keep using it over and over. So that's practice, right? That's your fundamentals, what a coach I think would proudly say. And so when you're doing that over and over again, you don't have to retain conscious awareness when it's time to do it. Your brain knows what to do.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

And that's also how you build confidence. And so doing it over and over again gives you the evidence of like, hey, I can actually do this. And that's one piece with confidence is having the evidence, having the proof, like I can actually, you know, shoot that free throw, right? Or make that goal, or do whatever skill that we're trying to master. So it's like the repetition, as B's talking about, that builds a neural pathway, also then helps give our brain evidence. Okay, I really can do it. The second part of that is then how are we what we call it cognitively appraising it? That was very technical, right? But like sure, how are we thinking through it? Like, what's our self-talk behind it? If we're doing the thing over and over again, but attributing it to external factors, oh, I got lucky. Oh, well, she wasn't guarding me very closely. I had plenty of space for that shot, right? If we're attributing our success to external factors, we're never gonna build the confidence. Building the confidence all depends on how are we using that self-talk to acknowledge, no, I actually did do that and I did it well. And I've done it well repetitively. Maybe I'm good at this.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

And that's so important for confidence building because we have to be realistic that even with our most confident moves, we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna be human, we won't be perfect. However, that doesn't negate all the track record of evidence that we have that says, I am actually good at this.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, right. Yeah, and we talk a lot about you know those moments that uh athletes just naturally feel like they they failed, right? And they're gonna use that that word of failure, or they freeze in that moment when there's a lot of pressure. Um, how would you what would you recommend in in those moments to kind of overcome that? Or what's really happening there?

SPEAKER_02 8:51

So, you know, that's a human thing, not an athlete thing. Sure, not a failure thing. When something bad happens to you or you you perceive something as negative, yeah. Um, you will always remember that more as a human being than you will the positive things. We call it negativity bias in cognitive science. Um, and it's a survival mechanism. Like I ate those berries and got really sick and almost died. I don't want to forget about that. I'm not gonna forget anything about those berries, right? But So we're saying it's actually a healthy thing. It's a helpful thing in some context. Okay. Um and it's a natural thing. Okay. Um, but in the context of performance, and you know, kind of Nora is talking a little bit about something we often will call like imposter syndrome, where you don't build that confidence that you rightfully should, it's that your negativity bias is just it's a little bit too clicked on a little too high. You gotta turn the volume down. And you can't really turn the volume down on those negative thoughts, but what you can do is turn the volume up on the positive ones. So the advice I usually will give is to take that intensity repetition formula and really apply it to the wins. So, you know, whenever you make an amazing shot, you have an amazing play, you need to savor it. And it helps to savor it as quickly as you can. It's hard to do that in a game sometimes, but yeah, 15 to 30 seconds is about all it takes for your brain to really like encode something is like this is important. I should remember this. Like, find a way to really like celebrate that win, even internally.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Um, and the other, I always say, is to reflect back on the wins, and that's the repetition piece. Um, and that can be really helpful from a coach perspective, is sitting down with your team, and it can be really easy to focus on the places where there's opportunity to improve and challenges and issues, and not always as easy to really take that equal amount of time on the things that were done great. Right. And so if a coach can really even err a little bit on the side of the things that went great, even more than the things that went poorly, that will help to create more of a balance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah, helps balance out that self-talk. And and like you're saying, with the the negative side of things as well, like when things do go poorly, um, it's helpful to see like what's driving our thinking behind that. Is it the emotion of a bad outcome that's then driving us to feel guilty? Because that's just what our brain does when it feels bad. It kind of looks around the room and says, okay, who's responsible for this bad feeling? I'm feeling bad about this, or that's a bad outcome. Who's responsible? Oh, it's me. I'm the one having the feeling, therefore I should feel guilty. I'm the problem. Yeah. Guilt guilt, like, well, I could go on the whole whole thing about guilt, right? But it, you know, it makes sense when we have, you know, we have a role in what happened, but we intend the bad outcome. Like we steal the cookie from the cookie jar. Well, we should feel guilty then, right? Yeah. We intentionally did the harm, bad thing happened. What can be really tough is we'll feel guilty in times that we didn't have the bad intention, but a bad outcome still happened. You know, the game, you know, we lost the game, right? And we might internalize that as I lost the game. I missed that last shot, or I didn't block that last goal, I lost the game, right? And we'll we'll internalize it based on our emotional reaction versus looking at logic, right? Looking at track records, logic, looking at the balance of both sides. And so one way to help with some of that negative um negative negativity bias is B was saying, that tendency to like focus more on the negative and pay more attention to it. One thing to help with it is actually force ourselves to look at what are the facts, what actually does the evidence support. And sometimes that means we got to get out of our head, which is like an emotional haven, yeah, and like write things down on paper. Say, okay, what proof do I have that I am the one who lost that game for us, right? Let me walk through the entire game and everything that happened and every play and every error. Um, and I know it's way easier said than done. Like I can flash back to times in high school sports where I too was the one thinking that, and that's where surrounding ourselves with people who will give us good feedback and self-talk is so important as well. Having those coaches and teammates and that culture where it's like, no, as a team we lost, not like you as an individual lost it for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Should we tell her the ghost thing, the Pac-Man ghost? The little evidence ghost that we were talking about?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Uh if you forgot to be a good idea. That is well, I know we talked about it, but I don't.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Let's hear it. So what Nora's talking about is is common in in cognitive science too. Um, and this one definitely bleeds over into mental health, and but um in cognitive science, we call that story that she's referring to a schema a lot of times. That's the fancy name. So if anybody wants to like throw that on the scrabble board. Um, but yeah, there's schemas and they're kind of our brain shortcuts in how to like classify evidence quickly. But to Nora's point, you need to focus on the evidence when you have a schema that's getting in your way. And I've always told people the best way to practice that is to pretend like there's a little ghost that you can't really see or interact with, but he's following you around and he can see everything. He can't read your mind, he can't read other people's minds, but he's just following you all day, this little invisible ghost. What did that ghost actually see and hear? Like what did that ghost, what would that ghost write down if he were writing down everything he saw? He can't, again, read your thoughts, he doesn't have all the context. It's just what happened in that game if he was following you. What are that? That's the facts. And I think sometimes whenever when Nora said getting out of your head, like that's my literal way of teaching people like a little trick for like literally getting out of your head. Like, what did your ghost see during the game today? Like, get into the head now of that little Pac-Man ghost, and like we both randomly see this thing as a Pac-Man ghost. It can be whatever ghost you want, but uh yeah, what did he see? Have him record it. And sometimes when you take it out of yourself like that and externalize it, it makes it a lot easier.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. I love that little trick, and I feel like I'm gonna use that now, even though I'm you know not an athlete or you know, playing sports as much anymore. It works for anything. It works for everything.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

It's really good for relationships, like whenever you get frustrated with somebody because you you tend to like anytime you that story, that schema starts to grow more powerful than the evidence that supports it. Yep. Um, you know, and you start to mind read or try and tell the future, all those kinds of little cognitive back products, um, the ghost trick comes in clutch.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Um, we talk a lot about, and you know, athletes will share with us too. Um there's a lot of pressure around having like mental toughness. Um, it comes from coaches, the peer pressure of uh, you know, their their teammates as well, just naturally, right? Um, but when you guys hear uh the word mental toughness, how would you translate that to make it make sense from a you know a healthy psychological standpoint?

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Such a good question. I mean, it's tough because like even as you say that, I I can like hear coaches' voices telling me to be mentally tough, right? We're all about mental toughness. Yeah. And like in and of itself as a concept, not a bad thing, right? Like when it's referred referring to resiliency and figuring out ways to pick yourself back up and move on and take lessons and learn, then it's a good thing, right? Then it's helpful because it's helping us adapt and like figure out, okay, I don't like that outcome. What do I want to do different next time, right? What needs to be different? So it's helpful when it motivates us to grow and change change, excuse me, grow and change and do something different. I think what can be tough is when people are stuck feeling a certain way and they've internalized those messages of be mentally tough, and they think that means I need to just suck it up and push through and deal and just like deal with the current without any sort of change or different way to deal with it. I think that's where it can become a double-edged sword, right? And something to have more conversations around besides just be mentally tough, however you interpret and define that.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, for sure. What are what are some of the signs that you would typically see for people who are stuffing it down, right? And kind of internalizing it a little bit.

unknown 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

It's hard to look, it's hard to see sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Absolutely. So it's like, well, I'm gonna give you a non-answer to that question. Right, yeah. Because it's tough. I mean, first off, everyone's warning signs are different. So everyone's warning signs are gonna be different and unique. Um, the other thing is from a psychology, clinical psychology perspective, we divide up those warning signs into four categories. The first one being behavioral, like the actions we take, the things we do. The next one being cognitive, so the thoughts we have, next one being the emotions or feelings that we have, and the last one being the physical sensations. So are we feeling tense or nauseous or sweaty or warm, whatever it might be? You notice something about those four signs. Three of them aren't always visibly apparent to other people, right? Our actions and behaviors are, but people don't always know our thoughts unless we tell them. People don't always know how we're feeling unless we're acting it out, like we're being irritable or aggressive. Um, and people don't always, you know, maybe they can pick up on you see more tense, right? You you look flushed, right? Like maybe people can see those physical sensations, but not always necessarily. So already three of the four warning signs might not, you know, if if we're hiding in these other three, it might not be readily apparent to other people. And so I want to start, I wanted to start by answering it from that perspective because I also recognize that people can put a lot of blame and guilt on themselves of like, why didn't I notice these warning signs? Why didn't I see this? I should have known, I should have seen that this person was struggling. Um, and like my heart goes out to anyone who's thinking that because it obviously means they love and care about the person who is struggling, and they're trying to think about, you know, well, how could I have prevented this? I care about them, I don't want them to be in that position. Um, so it's tough when a lot of these signs may not be visible, like you said. The consistent things though are noticing any kind of change, right? Behavior changes, if people are talking to us different, like saying things differently to us, like I really don't care about life anymore, I don't care about things anymore, I don't, I hate this sport, whatever it might be. So we can still sometimes see changes in these different categories. It's just not always so formulaic of like if they say this or do this or that thing. That said, if you hear, if you notice change, I also think our tendency is to try to rationalize change. I mean human tendency, right? Let me make sense of this within how I'm viewing this person. Oh, maybe she's acting out because she's going through puberty. Maybe he's acting this way because he's really stressed about which D1 school he wants to sign with, right? So we try to like rationalize it within the understanding that we have. Totally natural thing to do, very human thing to do. So no judgment there. Yeah. However, what I would push people, if people are really feeling like, hey, I want to be an advocate for my friends and family, or I want to watch for warning signs and help out, is that if you notice change, ask people directly. And not just a hey man, you doing good? Yeah, I'm doing good. Right? But like, yeah, hi, I've noticed that you know you're you're late to practice, or you just leave right after practice. You don't hang around and joke with us. Like, what's going on with you? Being really direct, to the point where we can directly ask people, like, are you having thoughts of suicide? Are you having thoughts of hurting yourself? It can feel so scary to ask.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Even as a clinical psychologist, I think the first hundred time I asked people, I was just like, Like, I'm sorry, this is really weird. Like, we just met and now I'm asking you, are you thinking of killing yourself? Right. Um but the research shows if we don't ask directly, we don't get direct answers. Okay. The research also shows if we ask directly, it does not at all increase people's risk of suicide.

unknown 20:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

So sometimes there's stigma there that, well, if I ask them about suicide, I'll plant a seed in their head and then they'll be thinking about it, and then they might do it. The research shows it's absolutely not true. And if anything, it can lead to better outcomes where people will actually be honest and like, yeah, you know, I have had a couple thoughts about it, or I was thinking about something related to that the other day. Great, then it can launch us into getting help that they might need.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Yeah. Yeah. And one thing I I think might be counterintuitive about mental resilience and mental toughness. Um, there's a whole field of research on this for folks that are interested too. It's often called grit. Um, Angela Duckworth does some amazing work on grit. And this is like a I don't wouldn't say like a newer concept, but we're we're still learning or no? Still there's some great existing research out there, but certainly still learning.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

But um to Nora's point, grit has and mental resilience has shown to be this amazing kind of flourishing tool. It's very important for your overall mental health. Right. Um, but in order to achieve it, you know, people think mental toughness, okay, we have to be tough, we have to have this. It's actually all about creating a place where it's safe to fail. And a lot of it comes from what we call in in cognitive science, uh a curiosity mindset or a flexible mindset, an open mindset, or growth mindset, it's sometimes called. Um, where you kind of shift from I have to, I must, um, to what if.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

You know, um, and so when people think of mental toughness, I think that there is, and I think that's the wrong phrase to think because it does insinuate a control, a choking out, a like a tamping down when ironically um you achieve that mental growth. That resilience, that toughness that people are looking for by allowing those four kind of um areas that Nora talked about earlier to just flow. Like, of course you're upset. Like, of course that was disappointing. That did not go the way you wanted it to go. Let it be safe for people to be upset, to be disappointed, you know, um to have whatever emotional kind of vibe is happening. When you have that kind of safety net, people will naturally sort of be able to get into a little bit when you're safe, you you react a little bit more responsively as opposed as opposed to like you know, dramatically, or there's no fear, there's no sense of threat. Yeah. So I think what might again kind of come as a surprise to a lot of people is it's actually not about toughness or stoicism or holding back. It's actually the opposite. It's about safety and acceptance and and just kind of allowing that all to flow the way it needs to flow.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

That's amazing. Um and as you're as you're saying that, I'm thinking about this. So in in my other life, um, not my Sophie squad life, um I have the privilege of uh leading uh I'm in healthcare operations. So I've got a team that um we lead a lot of doctors and and teams and that sort of thing. Um and they have huge responsibilities and uh lots of metrics, lots of goals, all of it, right? Um so we talk a lot about having a safe place. Um, and I've worked pretty hard, I would say, within my team to make sure, and now they're starting to use the language as well to be like, okay, it's a safe place. And they'll come to me and say, okay, I should have known this. We've been working on this for like a year, but it's a safe place, right? I can tell you where I'm at. And it it's really awesome to see how the culture of the team evolves and how my team members as well as as well have come to me and just, you know, been really open and vulnerable and honest. And it helps me get to the truth of like, okay, where are you? What support do you need? Um, you can come and tell me anything, right? And we'll be able to work through it together. And if I don't have the answer, it's okay. I'll find somebody. Um, but creating that culture obviously is is a really important thing. And so I get it's on the you know business level, but like you you both have said, this translates even beyond.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

I think a lot of like athlete culture is you know, do it yourself, carry yourself, show how tough you are. Right. And sometimes, again, it's more on the therapy side, but I do therapy with athletes as well. Yeah. Um, as well as like veterans and high performers and all across the board. But sometimes uh analogy I'll use is like, well, think about carrying something really big and awkward and heavy, like a big TV or a big duffel bag, whatever it might be. Sure, you could probably carry that big, you know, 70-inch TV by yourself. Wouldn't it be easier and in fact, probably a little bit smarter to get someone to help you with it? Right. And so like making that decision call to be like, yeah, I could do this myself, but like why wouldn't I take the smarter route, get some help, not risk dropping the TV and breaking it everywhere? Right. Right. When it's like, oh, it might feel harder to reach out and like ask someone for help, but that makes you stronger than if you're doing the harder thing, right? Don't let some logic of that being weak try to slow you down. When in fact, if it's harder, that means you have to be stronger.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Right. Yeah. So the sorry, I was um the the self-talk gets in the way sometimes. And I I even notice this within myself too, right? Like asking the hard things or having the stigma around these things can be challenging. Um what what can you say from when when you don't necessarily have the courage, or I don't even want to call it courage because it's you know, but the um you don't have the uh the the comfort level at that point to be able to say, I need help, or I need support with this, or this is how I'm feeling. Um what type of self-talk would you guys recommend?

SPEAKER_02 25:54

I mean, for me, and I probably I'm gonna keep this short because I feel like Nora's gonna answer this much better than I would, but I think it's helpful just being aware of your self-talk and the tone of it. Um trying to get on top of it a little bit. We call that metacognition. Okay. It's thinking about how you're thinking, thinking about how you think. Um, and it can be incredibly useful, even if you don't quite have an answer to it, but if you can be out of those thoughts and get on top of that self-talk, almost hear it as though another person is saying it. Even if you don't know how to fix it, you can at least assess that's pretty negative, or that's it seems a little excessive, right? That's jumping to conclusions. Um, and from that point, it can be a little bit more helpful to kind of counter some of those points with just again kind of going back to the ghosts, right? Straight facts.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

It's boring, you know, they have no color. It would be like a a sports commentator just, you know, kind of like just droning on about exactly what's happening on the field, right? But that's essentially what you want to try and get yourself too if you're struggling with your self-talk. Um so for me, it's it's actually, I think, a good place to start is that metacognitive awareness. Um, one tool I've heard used that's really helpful is just labeling. Um, like that was a thought. That was, you know, and you could even just say like that was a big thought, or like that was a that was a straightforward thought. But like just kind of putting a sticky note on it helps you to get away from it, no matter what you label it. It you're not it. It it gets you out of that stream.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

No, I want to add too much to that. I mean that makes me feel good. Yeah, right. You've been listening, you've been listening to everything I've been saying. Good, good. I'm just kidding. Um, because it's no one magic phrase, right? Like what works for one person is gonna sound super cheesy to the next person. So you can be like, but it's a good question to ask because it's like, well, can we have some kind of like formula or approach for this? And the answer is yes, right. And like self-talk, you know, it only when it's negative, right, when it's causing problems, it causes the most problems when, as B was saying, we're really fused with it, we're really stuck with it, we're kind of one with our thoughts, right? I am the failure, like I am the lost game, I am the slowest runner on the field, right? When we get really fused with those thoughts, that's when it becomes very problematic. So, I mean, there are many strategies that can help us step back from those thoughts. Again, whether it's writing on a sticket note or talking ourselves through. So B was throwing out some great strategies there. Um, anything that helps us separate out, you know, what would I say if a friend was saying this to me is also a common strategy, right? If I heard this from someone else, when we write it out and see it on paper, we process it differently than when we're having the thought in our brain. So sometimes just seeing it on paper can be helpful as well. It's like, oh, I have to like intake it like as outside information now. Interesting, yeah. Yeah. So many different ways that we can try to, you know, separate from that self-talk, but also to a little bit tangent from your point, but to build on it as well, because you were kind of starting from, well, what if we don't feel like talking to someone else or reaching out or having that confidence to share with someone else how we're thinking? Yes, these are helpful strategies that you can do individually with self-talk, but I also encourage people like think about who your confidant could be. You know, even if you're doing, even if you're killing it right now and you're like, I don't have any issues with this. Why am I even listening to this podcast? Like, I have no problems. Like my mental health is awesome, it's great, my performance is awesome. Perfect, perfect time to set up some preventative strategies. Like, who could be my confidant if, heaven forbid, I feel like I'm struggling, if the weight gets a bit much, if I feel like my self-talk isn't enough to help me out of this and I need to reach out to someone else.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Um, when I've given a talk like this in a in a group setting, I said, look around the room, like figure out if there's anyone sitting around you you'd want to be your confidant. It can be a friend, it can be a coach, it can be a mentor, a parent, sibling. Um, you it doesn't have to be mutual, like they could have a different confidant than you, so you don't need to compare notes, right? Which always makes the kids giggle. Um, but it's like it's like the important thing from that is who could I identify as my one person that I trust that if I went up to them and said, I'm not doing so great, that I trust that they are going to be concerned, protect me, take care of me, give me the support I need, even if they don't know what to do, which you alluded to as well. Even if they said, Okay, we need to get a doctor, a therapist, your primary care doctor in here, right? Yeah, like, you know, that's okay. They don't need to be your therapist, they just need to be your confidant that you feel like if anything feels like it's not going well, I can tell this person.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

And I would even jump in and say, like, this is something where our first conversation around mental performance and mental health, a lot of this might sound like, oh, that's mental health stuff. And for some people, that might carry a certain stigma. But coming from the mental performance side of the house, I've worked with people who have to do incredibly difficult things in incredibly difficult situations. Athletes, military, I've even worked like astronauts, you know, like people who have to do tough stuff. But one of the things that I think is so frequently neglected is that your brain is not where your mind lives. You're we call it in when we train people, um, we call it your cognitive ecosystem. And science is showing, especially in the last like 10, 15 years, your mind is your body, your mind is your environment, your mind is other people. It's not a matter of like, oh, there's this like esoteric abstract effect. You really do think with the people around you. So as Nora's talking about this, like all I'm hearing from like kind of my cognitive science, like mental performance side is like that's just tuning up your social cognition right there. Like, yeah, no matter what, feast or famine, you're crushing it, you're not crushing it. I wouldn't even think about it as like, what do I do if something goes wrong? Because like those confidants, they shape how your mind works. Like they constantly, whether they're doing, you know, whether you mean for them to or they mean for them to, it all happens organically and naturally. We're social creatures and we think with each other in a network, um, kind of this invisible network with our words and our language, our you know, micro expressions and just how we interact. So when she's talking about those confidants, even if you're like, oh, I don't need that right now, I'm fine. Like everyone needs it because it will make you, even if you're at a high point in your game, it will take you to the next level. Like be mindful. Just like you'd be mindful of your diet, your exercise, how you're taking care of your body, how you're taking care of like what's your equipment, you know, where are you practicing? Who are you surrounding yourself with and what are those social interactions consisting of? That's a huge part of building up a very strong mind.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah. Great reminder. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Um, you know, we talk a lot about uh athletes attaching their identity to their sport as well. Oh gosh, yeah. Um I'm sure we can have a whole segment on just this specifically. Um, but you know, why would you guys say uh from your professional opinion, um, what would you say is so important on making sure that they're not attaching their identity to it? Or or how can you know, we're getting into kind of a tough space there, right? Yeah. We see this a lot too with like, I mean, doctors, lawyers, yeah, a lot of people. I was just saying, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

That's a big one with Nora and or veterans too, yeah. Because as you're transitioning from like active duty to veterans, they deal with a huge version of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Who am I now? Yeah, yeah. And it's tough because any shift in identity, any transition in your identity is hard for all humans, all people, athletes, veterans, yes, you name it, right? Any shift be motherhood. Oh my gosh. I don't know why that one just popped in, but right, like any any identity transition is tough.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Full on, right? So the the ways we can try to make it a little easier is remember identity is multidimensional. So we're we might be an athlete, we are an athlete, but we're also a sister, daughter, you know, thinking about like what else am I you look at me, I'm a white presenting female in her mid-30s, right? Like there's a lot, a lot of surface level things with identity and also all those deeper things too, how identify, right? So it's multidimensional. It also works best when it's flexible, when we're okay leaning into some identities more and away from other ones more at different times. I think what can be tough, especially, I mean, I my athletic career peaked in high school and ended in high school, so I totally recognize that. Um, that's my experience. Uh, a little bit of boxing afterwards, but um, it can be tough when at that age and at the age, you know, young adolescents and um early adulthood, when we're also going through a process called individuation, which is developing our own identities outside of our parents. You know, we're not just John Smith's kid or Sarah's daughter. We are figuring out who are we and how do we fit into the world. So we're already forced into that identity crisis, so to speak. It makes sense we might grasp on to being an athlete. Well, I'm a basketball player, I'm a point guard, you know, I'm I'm the next LeBron James, I'm I'm whoever we're grasping on to. So to normalize makes total sense that we might grasp onto that. And I think sometimes that makes it tough for for I say kids, but I mean like young, young adults, adolescents. Uh it shows how old I am. I think otherwise it makes it tough when you're given the advice of like make sure your identity is grounded in a bunch of other bunch of things in a bunch of different dimensions. That sounds really good on paper, and I say it to people as well. So like I understand how it sounds, but that can make it sound like, okay, well, besides an athlete, I have to also be a chess player and have another hobby and do this or that. And so one thing I like to kind of turn that on its head is saying, hey, even if you cannot picture your identity outside of your sport, find your identity within your sport. And what I mean by that is, okay, if you can't picture your identity outside of your sport, find who else you are within your sport, as in who are you as a player? Who are you when you show up on your team? I think some of the, you know, for advanced teams, some of the best chemistry exists when players are not just a goalie or a point guard or a shortstop, but they're also the class clown, they're also the the mom, the nurturer, they're also the silent one who pushes people, they're the mentor, they're the leader. So you can still find your identity within sport when you think about like what part gives me pride, what part gives me joy, like what is my role on this team? Or if you play an individual sport, like how do I show up and conduct myself to the other team, the opponents, to the refs or umps, right? Like, how do I show up? And then those are the things that we can translate into our identity beyond you know, however long our athletic career lasts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

And I think that feeds into things like purpose and values. Um I love what you're saying, like do it within the context of the sport, if that's a big part of your life, but do it in a way that where if were the sport to be removed, it would still hold, you know. And then try and find those values where you can bring them into other things in your life. Um, you know, as a resident class clown, you know, like it's like, yeah, when I'm on Teams, that was what I was doing. But when I'm at work, that's what I'm doing. And it it does really help to have that because I, yeah, it it crosses so many boundaries. I mean, just yeah, to your point, you said like being a mom, like that I'm a relatively new mom, and I just remember being like, well, I'm a scientist. Like, how can I be a mom? And it was like, okay, like a lot of the things taking that time of like the values that I love about science, you know, curiosity and just kind of like enjoy and observing, those all come through in my role as a mom, too. So I think it also really once you get the hang of doing things like Nora's talking about there, it also really gives you a leg up of when you are faced with a new role, you can just pounce on it. Absolutely because you know just exactly what's gonna be right. And so when those changes suddenly face you, you don't have that same scare.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

You have your common thread throughout. You're like, I still know who I am, even though the situation's different. You have your common thread, you're like, okay, new situation I can approach it. Exactly. It's absolutely something that, again, from a therapy perspective, which is generally when mental health is not going so well, but when we work with people on transitions, I at least focus on two things. What are your values? And yes, sometimes it has to be outside of that identity as an athlete or whatever the lost identity is. So, what are your other values and what other domains do those fall? You know, community learning, family, education, career, work, so many different domains. Um, in fact, SAMHSA has a really nice like eight domains of wellness kind of checklist on their website that I think kind of helps remind us of like those other domains in our life besides it. So little plug for that. Um, so yes, do we do some of that too, where you look at like outside of an athlete, like where do you put your time, what's valuable and important to you. But then finding these common threads within it, like what made that so enjoyable? Yeah, yeah. Yes, the love of the sport, but what else? Right. Digging a bit deeper there too.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

If you were a flavor of ice cream, what would you be? Like just I love it.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Take it to weird places. Yep. Yep, that's great. Yep. You know, because so often, you know, we've got um, like a hockey goalie, for instance, right? They have a they have a job, they've got performance, um, they've got the technical skills, um, but really understanding um the the soft skills, I guess, or or however you want to say that, um, the domains of what makes sense and who are they on and off the ice, um, and how do they show up within their teams and and what you know really feeds them. And so spending some time thinking about that and making sure that we're attaching identity to that too is great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

So that's a good pro tip for like coaches too, right? Create a culture, create space for that. Yeah. I remember again playing high school softball, like two things that stand out to me is one, our coach making us at the beginning of the year like write out not just our goals for softball, but our goals for life and our goals for who we are. It's like, this is dumb, right? You're going through and doing it. But he's like forcing us to reflect on like who else are we? Yep. Um, and then also him being vulnerable, him telling a bunch of teenage girls his like uh emotional struggles, his hard life life stories, you know, things that at the time were like, whoa, like we barely lived. This is like crazy to listen to, right? But when I look back on it, I'm like, wow, what a developmental turning point for me to like see that model and see someone creating that culture on our team to say, like, it's okay to talk about this stuff, even if we didn't have you know things like that coming up in our lives, just seeing like, oh yeah, if coach can do it, we can do it too.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think too on the coach side, I think it's helpful to help guide reframes where just because you're a goalie doesn't make you ex, but if you're ex, it might make you a pretty good goalie. I think of I played roller derby for a really long time, and I remember one time when I was early on playing a girl from the other team who had been playing much longer than me. She's like, You're kind of bossy, and like you're always like shoving the other girls around. I think you'd be a great pivot, which is kind of like a a very much a bossy gag, you're kind of controlling and everything. And um that's not it maybe sound terrible, but uh but the idea being like you might be a good pivot because you're already this, not hey, you're a pivot, so you should be this. Yeah. And I think people sometimes accidentally fall into those traps. Like, hey, you're a goalie, so you should have, you know, traits X, Y, and Z. Yeah. And that's not necessarily the case, but it may be that, hey, you have traits X, Y, and Z. You might explore this thing or this thing. Um, it's simple, yeah, flipping it on its head like that, but it can make a huge difference because now you're centering it on the things that person already is, whether they're a goalie or a muffin baker or a candlestick maker, whatever it is. Yeah. Um, but you don't have to align yourself with a thing that is transient.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Yeah. So taking those natural personality traits and making it fit within, you know, whatever the team needs as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Ground it in the things that the person already is, yeah. Not necessarily the position that you think they should be.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yeah. It's interesting that we think about this. Um, and you know, I'll share. Uh, so uh my daughter is she plays basketball and in middle school, made the high school team's doing a great job, lots of pressure, obviously. Um, but she does not like people in her face and she doesn't like the pressure, like the physical pressure of it. Um, but she's very comfortable on the three-point line. So they made her the two, the shooting guard. Um, she'd prefer to be the point guard where somebody's right there, right? Because that's like, she's like, I want to be the point guard. This is what you do. And it's interesting watching her because when she gets to be the shooting guard and nobody's in her face, she's just in her element. And it's who she is as a person, right? And so, yeah, we're gonna let her, we're gonna let her try this out. And if that's what she wants and she wants to be the the point guard and go down that route, sure, we'll support you in all of that, of course. Um, but it's been really fun to just kind of see her show up differently based on those positions. And I think you're you guys are 100% spot on that um we are just who we are, right? And so at the end of the day, we can work hard in a position um if if we really want it, right? But it doesn't change who we are, and a lot of us have a natural, um, just a natural position on the team or way of showing up as well. So yeah, it's fun to be able to see that. And even as a parent, I'm like, this is fun to be able to experience that with her too and help her find that journey too. She found her spot.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

Like you find your tribes, you find your places. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

And she needs to be trying it out, right? At that age, she's still figuring out experiments. Absolutely. She's figuring it out. So that's like the whole flexibility piece of identity is like, well, try a few on, like, see if that really fits. What if you were the shooting guard? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

What if you're like it, right? That's where she is right now. It's not you have to be a point guard, so figure it out. It's well, what if you were a shooting guard? And it's not okay. It takes so much. You you've mentioned pressure. I feel like that's like if we were doing Sesame Street, that'd be like the word of the day. Um and I feel like what you just described is a perfect example of just dissolving that pressure. Yeah. You know, because it's it's all about what. What if it's all about bringing it back to play and experimentation? You're just discovering, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:05

You're discovering it, and you're like, okay, this is more information. Now I can do something with this. Exactly. The world is your Costco. Taste whatever you want. There you don't have to buy any of it. Yep.

unknown 44:15

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Full free lunch. There you go. You got it. So just to kind of wrap up here, just, you know, we've had a really good conversation today, and this has been super helpful. For our uh young athletes that are listening, and even coaches, and really anybody, I guess, um, what would you say is the one thing that you hope sticks with them from our discussion today?

SPEAKER_02 44:40

I know for me, if you take all of the cognitive nerdy science stuff that I've brought up in conversation and you boxed it all up into something, what would it make? And it makes play. Like at the end of the day, almost everything that I've been talking about is coming back to a sense of play. Roll with it, have fun with it, experiment with it. It's sometimes easier said than done, but at the end of the day, we call these things games for a reason. And, you know, when you can allow yourself to let go and just remember why you love it and get lost in that just feel good, sensory experience of it, you will always do better than if you're sitting there treating it like, you know, eating your vegetables or like grinding away. So I think, you know, for any young person or coach of young people, for me, it's like just do your very best to find that sense of play and let it flourish. Because it's even for adults and professional athletes, it's the secret sauce.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Yeah. And is it okay for an athlete to to feel that way and take that mindset, even if a coach doesn't drive that type of culture?

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Yes, and that's hard, especially for a young person. If you've got a real like nose to the grindstone coach, you know, it can be really tough. But have confidence. Yeah. A scientist said on a podcast you listen to, play is more important than that grind. Certainly bring your whole self to it. Do your best, bring everything you've got, but like have fun in the process. So yeah, try to find those little ways, even if they have to be something that you do for yourself. But oh yeah, for any coaches out there listening, like please also help support that because it's pretty tough to do as a young person when your coach is like pushing you in the opposite direction.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

So yeah. And each individual deserves that, right? Everybody deserves to go. They deserve to go on their own journey and discover this and have the support behind them.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

So the human brain at all ages and stages of life is never better off in performance or health than when it's in a sense of play. Like that's that is our optimal state of being. So go for it as much as you can. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Wow. Well, compared to that, I feel like I have such a clinical psychologist and therapist parting words of advice. So I feel this pressure of like, I have a little bit of a stage. Like, what do I want the people to hear? Um, so this is a nice addition to what B just said about play, where my thought when you asked that question was just kind of tying everything together, coming back to this message of we are all responsible for our own mental health, but we're not alone. And to understand that, right? Like we're all we we seem to understand that we're all responsible for our own physical health, right? It's on us if we're getting enough sleep, what we're putting in our body matters. Are we exercising? Are we stretching? Are we doing those physical health things we're supposed to? So we all seem to grasp that one. So hopefully it doesn't feel like a far jump to say you're also responsible for your mental health. At the end of the day, you know, we can get support, but putting that on other people doesn't really make sense. Same way putting our physical health on other people, other people don't feed us, right? Uh hopefully aren't. Well, there's kiddos, I guess. You're ma. There's some kind of there's definitely, definitely some limitations with this too, right? But thinking from that perspective, okay, I am responsible for my mental health, but I'm not alone. What does that part mean? Well, we're not alone with our physical health, right? We have coaches who help us, we have parents, we have teachers, we might even have athletic trainers helping us, or dietitians, depending on our sport and our level. So we have a whole team who helps us with our physical health. Let's have a whole team who helps us with our mental health too. And you'll notice that list I made of people who help with our physical health are not all professionals, but some are, right? So we can have some professionals on that list, like maybe a therapist or a school counselor, cognitive coach, cognitive coach, I guess. Yep. And right, that list can also be our peers, our friends, our siblings, our parents, our teammates, our teachers, right? Like who helps us with our mental health? We can decide who we want that support system to be, what it looks like. Um, but the important thing is, okay, we can take some ownership of this, whether we're excelling it right now or not. Same with our physical health. So if we take some ownership and say, hey, my mental health is my responsibility, what do I want to surround myself with? What habits do I want to build? Who do I want around me? How do I want to create an environment that supports that best possible?

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Yeah, that's perfect. Um, thank you guys for both being here and and helping kind of connect the dots for us and uh and really build the value of mental health and mental performance, why it's important and understanding the science behind it too, right? Yeah, this has been great. This is so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Great, thank you.