Tua Reminds Us of What's Important After a Concussion
Oct 01, 2022 11:01 am
Hello,
Do you have racing thoughts or overthink your performance? It is an attempt to control the outcome. More on that in the first post below.
Did you see Tua's injury Thursday night? It prompted me to write what we should be looking out for in our student-athletes after injury to be sure they don't rush back too soon.
And I have a 40% coupon code at the bottom for a tool that I have been using for months to improve emotional control and balance. I hope it helps you too.
Enjoy,
Dr Eddie
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Overthinking for Control
Overthinking. A very common complaint among my anxious athletes.
Something happens in the game and doubt creeps in. You feel a little nervous and want to be your best, so you think about what you want to do.
Then you add to the list. “I have to do this too, and watch out for that, and be sure this doesn’t happen, and what if that happens?” and so on.
You are so much in your head that your performance on the field or court suffers.
The reason we overthink is actually a healthy one.
Our mind is built to solve problems. Competition presents a real threat of losing, so our mind thinks of all the ways we could lose in an effort to warn us. But it becomes overwhelming with a list of potential threats and our minds race to process it all, losing focus on what is really important be our best.
Overthinking is the result of a struggle to control the outcome.
But that isn’t how excellence is done.
Excellence is trusting your training and trusting your ability to handle any challenge that may occur. It is playing in the moment and responding to your environment. There is actually very little “thinking” (meaning, a conversation in your head) because when you are in your head you aren’t in the game.
When we think about executing well learned skills, we slow up the body’s execution of those automatic skills which changes our form, mechanics, and response times.
So do this instead: Choose an intentional focus on important sport cues as they happen. Let your body do what it’s trained it to do. If you must “think” something, choose a whole action thought like “power” or “fast” or “explode” that directs your mind and body in the right direction.
Overthinking is the mind’s way of trying to make you feel better, but you end up feeling worse. Notice when your mind is racing in an attempt to control the outcome. Use this as a warning to change your automatic overthinking and intentionally put your attention back onto your job in the moment.
How you play in the moment is the only thing you truly have control over. So it makes sense to focus here, no mater what you are scared of. Focusing on what you can do now actually gives you the best chance of achieving the outcome you desire.
If you are struggling to control the outcome, control your focus instead.
When distracted by overthinking on the inside, focus outside.
Join me inside Success Stories Membership for more in-depth training on how to stop overthinking.
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Tua Reminds Us Of What's Important
What happened to the Miami Dolphins' QB Tua Tagovailoa on Thursday night was difficult to watch as he got carted off the field with a head injury. This was his second head injury, stumbling to the ground after a hit in the Bills game only 4 days earlier. A game that he left but then came back into to finish.
This raises the question, “when is an athlete ready to return to sport (RTS) after a concussion?”
Before I continue, let me be clear and say this is not a commentary on Tua’s situation.
Rather, I am sharing some of the results of a very recent study (Lassman, M. E., Rathwell, S., Black, A. M., & Caron, J. G. (2022). Exploring student-athletes’ perceptions of their psychological readiness to return to sport following a concussion. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/spy0000309) done with formerly concussed Canadian university student-athletes and their perceptions of factors involved in feeling psychologically ready to RTS.
I’d like to highlight their challenges, so we can help them in their distress and do a better job of protecting them from coming back to soon and getting reinjured.
Fear of reinjury, of a setback, of potential long-term effects, and of others’ judgments is a common theme when deciding to return. One study revealed that 59% of high school athletes experienced high levels of fear during their initial clinical visit, and 10% of athletes continued to report a high fear of reinjury despite receiving medical clearance to RTS (Anderson et al., 2019). This fear and resulting distraction can increase reinjury risk.
Concussions can also greatly disrupted athletes’ identity. Athletes who strongly identify with their athletic identities are more likely to engage in unsafe behaviors, such as playing through pain and injury, and attempting to speed up the rehabilitation process (Renton et al., 2021).
This can be influenced by external (i.e., other-imposed) and internal (i.e., self-imposed) pressures to return. Individuals uniquely contribute to the team’s success and being out of the game with injury does have an impact. One that coaches and athletes must deal with, even when supportive of an athlete’s healthcare. When an athlete goes down, it becomes harder to win. In more unsupportive contexts, questioning recovery progress and “toughness” can cause athletes to feel pressured to return before they feel psychologically ready (Caron et al., 2021).
The authors conclude, “Our results support previous calls to integrate the expertise of sport psychology professionals to facilitate psychosocial interventions to better support concussed athletes during RTS (Bloom et al., 2022).”
I’d like to be that support for you. Reply to this e-mail if I can help you in your rehabilitation and safely return to play.
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40% Off emWave2
I have been using my emWave2 trainer for over 6 months and am enjoying the benefits. I was turned onto this by a colleague who uses this to train her military clients in resilience.
I just got an e-mail from them (see below) and wanted to share the savings onto you. Check out their website for more details and let me know how it improves your emotional control and performance.
(I am not affiliated with emWave or get any money for referral. Just wanted to share what's worked for me.)
...
Hi Eddie,
Many of our emWave2 customers are sharing their device with their clients and family, so we’re offering a private 40% off sale on our emWave2® handheld to emWave2 owners.
The sale price is $137.40, a 40% discount off the $229.00 retail price.
Feel free to forward this email to family, friends, and colleagues.
To order emWave2 handhelds at the 40% off price -
- Use coupon code EMWAVE240 at checkout.
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Let us know if you have any questions.
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HeartMath LLC
14700 W Park Ave
Boulder Creek CA 95006 USA
831-338-8700 / 800-450-9111
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Dr. Eddie O’Connor
