“Define your dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Then file them away. Focus on running the race rather than winning it”
Coach Wooden
Fear is a normal reaction that warns our bodies to be careful. Anxiety is a type of fear, dealing more with worry and the future, rather than fearing something that is present.
Use these 6 Strategies to help overcome the fear and anxiety you are going through.
Step 1: Learn More About Your Fear
Fear is a neurophysiological response to a perceived threat. Fear activates our fight-or-flight response by stimulating the hypothalamus, which directs the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system to prepare our bodies for danger. This can happen suddenly with a surge of stress hormones into our bloodstream, or we can experience a slow drip of anxiety that creeps up on us as dread.
Step 2: Use your Imagination in Positive Ways
Unlike perception, imagination is not dependent on external sensory information taken from what a person can see, hear, feel, taste, or touch now. Rather, it’s generated from within and often unconsciously influenced by memories and feelings. Humans use imagination for a variety of reasons: to acquire experience and knowledge about the world, to better understand another person’s perspective, to solve problems, to create and interact with artistic works, and more. Imagination tends to go together with creativity and plays a pivotal role in the various stages of development.
Step 3: Use Your Brain in a Different Way than Usual in Sport
The impact of regular exercise on the body is obvious. It improves cardiovascular fitness, increases strength, and tones muscle. While these transformations are visible to the naked eye, changes to brain structure and function by physical activity occur behind the scenes.
Step 4: Focus on Your Breathing
Different breathing patterns activate our brain networks related to mood, attention, and body awareness. Focusing on the timing and pace of our breath can have positive effects on our body and mind. A recent study in the Journal of Neurophysiology may support this, revealing that several brain regions linked to emotion, attention, and body awareness are activated when we pay attention to our breath.
Step 5: Practice Mindfulness
Olympians, professional athletes, and individuals competing at the highest collegiate levels now use visualization, mindfulness, and meditation techniques as performance-enhancing tools.
Step 6: Use Nature as Your Therapist
Nature therapy, which is also called ecotherapy, is based on the concept of using nature to help us heal, especially psychologically. Instead of spending time enjoying and benefiting from the natural environment, we are spending more and more time on screens and online.
We do not spend time outside as much as we did before to decompress, let off steam, or recharge. We may no longer bike through a meadow or play games at the lake, for example, as we did when we were children.
We’ve replaced those leisurely activities with more time spent on social media and video games. The ramifications are we are a stressed-out society with a variety of mental health maladies.
Until next time
Coach Nye
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