Well Being Program 4: Playing Better
Interactive Transcript
Click on a word to move the video to that point.
Deepak: Well being is something we
all desire. But staying healthy and feeling
good can be quite a challenge especially
with the stresses that pervade every aspect of our lives today.
Everyone's aware that regular exercise
and eating healthfully are two essential steps
to well being. In this series, you'll
learn about a third step -- Relaxation.
that trigger your body's relaxation response.
You'll learn about the importance of deep
relaxation for reducing the harmful effects of
stress along with a series of easy to do
relaxation skills. And through our weekly
questionnaire, you'll gain an awareness of how
stress may be affecting you. So get a paper and pencil
ready and join us as we take the next step
to well being.
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pointed to as an antidote to stress but even here
it can get awfully competitive.
Could the pressure to win increase our level of
stress? And what about stress from the workplace? Can it reduce
our enjoyment of the game and perhaps even impair our
performance?
[music] [noise]
In this week's program, we'll see what
part stress plays in physical activity and this week's
questionnaire will help you recognize the role of stress in your
game and we'll give you some ideas of what you can do about it.
Relaxation Response Institute in Toronto is a pioneer
in the teaching of relaxation skills for stress
management.
more stressful but more sedentary all the time.
Our jobs are physically inactive or repetitive. We
sit at computers, in our cars, at home watching
television, none of which is properly relaxing.
We know that getting out for some physical enjoyment is
essential for well being but often just the thought of exercise
is not enjoyable. Sometimes our bodies feel
great, we feel light, we feel energetic. But other times,
we feel heavy and lethargic and even when you're active
you tend to have those moments when you're at your best and other
moments when you seem to make all the wrong moves.
work is added to the physical stress of the game as well as the
emotional stress of wanting to do well. We can
really learn a lot from the way athletes train.
Part of the way peak performing athletes train these days
involves learning how to manage stress through relaxation.
The techniques that they use are a little more
sophisticated than what we will be using but the principles are just the
same.
absolutely essential to an athlete's performance
They have to have optimal
muscle tension, optimal concentration,
optimal emotional control and relaxation
techniques teach you that self regulation
is breathing. And you can take it
from the Oriental art, 2000 BC talked about
breathing, the techniques of learning breathing, it's the basis
of meditation, yoga, a lot of those types of things.
We now have North American proof in terms of
the research medically, psychologically and in
sport performance there's a tremendous impact
on performance from breathing. From either holding your breath
or more importantly, hyperventilation.
only mess up your body but it can mess up your mind.
One of the key skills that I
require the athletes to learn is to breathe. It sounds simple
you can breathe with doing nothing but to learn
to do it under stress and to do it properly for a lot of people
is a problem. And they're not aware of it unless you monitor
them, train them and then they can also learn
to enhance it in terms of
for energy, using breathing to energize as well
as to relax. It's the fastest, quickest
way to self control.
has an impact on our athlete's performance. We only have to
look at the difference between practice behaviour
and competition behaviour. A figure skater, for
example, lands 2 triple jumps in a competition
and they can do 5 or 6 in a practice. The morning of
the competition, clearly we're dealing with a psychological
problem. We're dealing with something that has to do with the way
they perceive the competition as compared to the practice.
for us or there's always the pressure to win the nationals.
Because I've always won them and
I am a has-been if I don't and get no credit if I do sort of
thing. That kind of pressure, that's
very difficult to cope with.
yourself. The more you know yourself in thinking sports
not all sports. The ideal for us in
a lot of sports, if you can be automatic
just go on automatic pilot and react in a lot of
sports and having worked with sprinters, the ideal thing is leave your
brains in the locker room or in the library and just react.
That's ideal. But most of the time it doesn't work.
In sports like sailing or wrestling where you have
to think on your feet, you've got to know what it is
you're likely to miss because of who you are.
accomplished has basically kept the 3 of us sailing together
I think that our light air performances were
such that without that, we would have broken up
as a group because it was becoming very hard to
deal with each other in the boat.
I used to have, before competition I used to get really nervous.
Very nervous, almost to the point of being sick.
And Bob was getting tighter thinking that I was going
to screw up every turn of the boar. So
what happened is Sue basically was able to relax me
and I was making less mistakes and Bob
was happier with the way my learning curve
was going along. So that probably kept
us together as a crew. Otherwise
I don't know if all would have been able to put up with me very much
longer in the boat.
That's exactly it. We've all got the skill sets
A happy boat really translates those into
results.
if there's a personality conflict that we
can't put aside because
and stress really brings out personality conflicts
the boat just won't go.
they are, what they do under certain situations
in a particular under stressful situation, the more likely they are
gonna pick up cues as to when they're off target.
than even the national level mindset.
This creates some serious problems.
Because what happens is, people get to a certain
level of performance by just
busting their backside, by working hard, by
winning isn't the only thing, it's everything, by
you gotta give 110%, you gotta be focused, you gotta be
strong. And that may even get them on the national team. But to
move to a world class level
you gotta move to a whole different mindset. We're moving
to much higher levels. The difference between number
1 and number 50 on the money winning circuit on the professional golf
tour is I think 1.21 strokes per round.
It's phenomenal. It's a very hard game now. So more and
more elite athletes have to learn to acquire these skills.
rifle shooter and it is a precision sport.
So we have to concentrate on
a great deal of very precise
physical control over the situation. Also important
for emotional control and mental control.
You can have your worst performance if your stress
is not under control. You need to fire that gun
in between heart beats for optimal
control. The beat of the heart will influence
how precise you can be with that shot and
of course with the respiration. So you hold your breath
and then fire in between each breath.
of high precision control that
you need if you're doing something like shooting.
One method of monitoring the body's response
to stress is to use physiological equipment
in order to feed back the stress responses to the
individual so their awareness is heightened.
For example, if they're a shooter, there needs to be a great
deal of precision in the muscles that hold that gun
And so I relate the amount of tension
that it says on the bio-feedback equipment to
how the particular muscles feel in
my hand that's holding the gun. And with Mark, he
was very very aware of his
muscle control then we helped him to become
very aware of the breathing because this is very
important skill in shooting.
Also we need to monitor heart rate
and then the optimal control comes
in brain wave control and until
an athlete becomes that
aware and has that much self regulation
I don't think they'll ever be world caliber.
in Munich in 1988, I shot a world
record in one phase of the competition
and at that time, what I was actually going through
and setting a world record I
realized getting towards the end of the course of fire
that I was actually going to do it. And suddenly my heart rate
went through the roof. I thought what am I going to do?
The rifle started bouncing all over the place
Shooting is such a precision sport
like if you move the end of the barrel
the thickness of a human hair, you actually move
from the 10 ring out to the 9 ring.
I saw was this rifle moving, it felt like
almost an inch at a time which would put me right off the
target. It was like, this is it. I have to do this and
execute a shot. It went off really
funny, I didn't believe I had shot a world record
and I looked through the scope immediately after and it was a dead center 10
All those skills of doing
muscle relaxation, doing the mental rehearsal
mental visualization and having a routine to follow
all came to play at that particular time in my
shooting career and I executed everything as I
wanted to and hence I got a world record.
to help me enjoy physical activity more and maybe even improve
performance?
fun. I know you're out there primarily
to have a good time and that's important and get some
exercise and be outdoors and that's excellent.
But if at the time you want to concentrate, for example,
you're going to drive or you're going to do a putt,
then have that skill, that ability
to for instance, take a deep breath, relax, let the shoulders
drop, see yourself as calm, in control
See yourself as being successful
in this particular shot. Then you can
focus on what you have to do for those few minutes.
And then you go back to walking down the golf course and enjoying
yourself.
in terms of I don't believe necessarily in
excellence being this thing of winning. I'm in there
in the scenes and I'm concerned with people getting the best out of
themselves. And to do that, generally you have to have
a balanced life. If their social life, their school
life, their employment life is somewhat in balance
they're going to be able to be more aware of themselves
and so my objective in most cases, we
end up talking about the total person. Because the same mistakes
they make sailing are gonna be the same mistakes they make in the
office and the more places they get to practice these skills
then, the better they're going to be.
that athletes learn to do very well that we can all learn
to do is learn to act like you have
time because then at the body level and by breathing
properly and at the mind level and at the feeling level,
we put in the same message. It's a very congruent message
Ben Hogan said on the days when he played best,
he walked slow, he talked slow and he chewed slow.
but I do some fitness walking and I race a sailboat.
I also like to play squash for fun but I like to win too.
I know some practice will improve
my performance in all of these areas. I wonder
if stress is an issue at my level also?
But first of all, let me just say a couple of things about
your playing squash competitively or any sport competitively.
Research has determined that if you're a really
aggressive, competitive player, if you're a Type A personality
we talked about that last week, if you play your game with
that same need to win that you have in other areas of your life,
people can literally step off the squash court
or the hockey rink with more stress hormones in their bloodstream
after a good workout than before they went on.
important that you appreciate the attitude
that you have can determine your overall
stress levels. And stress affects our attitude.
If you have a lot of stress, if affects your
anxiety levels, muscle tensions,
ability to focus, negative expectations
and of course, you do need a certain amount of stress.
We all need a certain amount of stress to be at our best. But when you go
beyond that right amount of stress for you, then it starts having
a negative effect and it really does indeed impair
our overall performance.
James Luhr did an exploration with
a group of athletes, interviewed dozens of athletes
and wanted to explore
and see what they were experiencing, what was their
inner climate, what was their emotional, physical, mental state?
When they were performing at their very best? And it was
out of his research that we've devised a questionnaire that will
give you some idea. So you can compare your inner climate
when you perform against these ideal
state.
I'm gonna compare my performance with some ideal
performance?
you're comparing your own internal climate, your
own internal condition, your physical, mental, emotional state
against that which was experienced by top athletes
when they were in their ideal performance state.
In reality, that's not a common state for most athletes but
it's a state that they work towards and train to achieve.
Just look at the first question.
You generally feel relaxed and loose when performing.
You answer this with a yes or a no.
Just evaluate your own personal performance
against this ideal.
shown that as muscle tension
increases, performance tends to be reduced.
Next question. You usually feel a sense
of calmness and quiet inside.
You answer this with a yes or a no.
Doctor Luhr's research suggests that for many
sports activities the greater internal calm you can experience
the better you'll perform. The better will be your reactions.
So answer yes or no.
Next question. You don't feel anxious
or nervous very often. Again, research has shown
that as nervousness goes up, performance
tends to go down. Fourth question.
You feel charged with positive energy most of the time.
high energy relate to stress?
pumped up. We're talking about a positive
energizing love of the game
enjoying it, it's fun. That's the kind of
positive energy that we're talking about here.
You mostly feel optimistic and positive about
your performance. The more positive your expectations,
the better will be your performance. The more negative your
expectations, the worse your performance. High performing
athletes are aware of any negative thoughts that they have
and they quickly put them aside. For some people this is
natural. For others it's really a question of training.
Next question. You feel a genuine sense of
fun and enjoyment in your play. Yes or no?
played an important role when these athletes performed at their
best. The ability to play with a sense of fun
is something we should aim for in our recreational activities.
Next question. You feel mentally alert when you
perform. Mental alertness is one of
the keys to better performance.
The top athletes are alert. They have often an extraordinary
sense of alertness. They're aware of what's happening all around
them, they're able to respond quickly and effectively.
Next question.
You don't have difficulty focusing mentally and tuning in.
Yes or no.
performance state, athletes are concentrating very effectively on
what they have to do. They are able to ignore the crowd and other
distractions that come from both outside and inside.
Even from the competing thoughts within their own mind.
This is a skill that can be learned so look and see if this is true for you
or not. Next question.
You feel that you are really in control of yourself. Yes or no.
It seems the top athletes maintain an inner
control especially an emotional control. And that seems
to be absolutely crucial to top performance.
You generally find performing to be
effortless. When you tend to try hard,
your muscles tend to tighten up.
tend to block effectiveness. If anything,
rather than trying harder, you should maybe be trying a bit softer.
Next question. Your performance tends
to be automatic and spontaneous.
Yes or no. It seems that
the ideal athlete's find that they're at their
very best when they don't have to think, when it's just an
automatic reaction, when the golf swing is just an automatic
reaction. There is no paralysis
by analysis. You don't worry about whether your elbow is straight
or you're coming through. It's just a natural
automatic flow.
2 extremes of what you're talking about from my own life.
I race a sailboat and I play squash.
My sailing experience would get a lot of
yeses on this questionnaire. But squash, on the other
hand, wouldn't get very many yeses at all.
In fact, I can see a big difference in the way I perform in those 2
activities. On the sailboat, there have
been 3 of us racing together for the last 5 years
and we don't allow any shouting or that kind
of Type A behaviour.
And our performance over the last few years has come together and
we're winning a lot of races. Now squash
on the other hand, I don't feel relaxed
I'm usually playing competitors far better than
I am and they control the ball better
than me and so I have to race to get at the ball
and my performance is not automatic or spontaneous.
well because you've seen the difference
in your performance states when you're
playing squash and when you're sailing.
What I would like to do is to illustrate
a very simple method that you can
use in your sport, certainly on the squash
court or before you play squash that can help you
to get into this ideal state so you can really
bring that carryover from your successful activity
into one that really isn't quite as successful.
I'd like to try it.
And for those of you at home, you get much
more out of this program by actually doing the exercise with us
rather just watching. So follow along with us.
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onto your forehead and just let your forehead relax.
Let your forehead become loose and smooth
and just let go of any tightness
any tension that you can detect.
The word to relax in Latin literally means to let go.
In ancient Rome they used to relax prisoners from jail.
So when I say to relax, just let go, let it
go, let it become smooth and loose
and relax. Now, put your
concentration into your eye lids and let all the
muscles in your eyelids relax.
Of all the muscles in your body, your eyelids are the
easiest to relax. So just allow the muscles in your
eyelids to completely relax.
Let that relaxation now move down into your cheeks.
And down into your jaw.
Many of us carry a lot of tightness in the jaw --
A lot of tension in the jaw. We don't even notice it.
What I'm asking you to do now is just notice,
notice if you're holding onto tension that you don't need.
Let your jaw relax. Let it go.
Now relax your lips.
All the muscles in your lips relax. Let your lips part slightly.
And allow your tongue
to relax. Let your tongue just become loose and heavy
So you just let go of all the tightness in your
facial muscles. On your own now,
quickly scan your facial muscles in your mind's eye.
Your forehead, your eyelids, your cheeks, your jaw.
Your lips your tongue. Let go of any tightness
that you can detect. Now let that
loose relaxed comfortable feeling move down into
neck and shoulders. Just scan
for your neck and shoulders. If you can catch any tension
let it go. Let your neck relax. Let your
shoulders drop.
Let that loose relaxed feeling move down
into your upper arms.
Down into your forearms.
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Right to the tips of your fingers. It's just a letting go.
So quickly, on your own, just scan your neck and
shoulders, arms and hands
and just let go of any tension that you can notice, that you detect
Let it go. Give yourself the permission
to relax and to enjoy it.
concentration onto your throat and allow your throat to relax.
Let
the relaxation move down into your chest
down to your
solar plexus. Let go of any tightness that you can detect
in your upper torso.
Let your solar plexus relax and
allow the relaxation to move down into your stomach
Into belly. Again, many of us carry a lot of
tightness in the stomach. Let it go. Let your stomach relax.
Now
just quickly, on your own, scan your throat, chest,
solar plexus and stomach, letting go of any
tightness that you don't need.
Now direct your
awareness to your upper back, between your shoulder blades.
Let go of any tightness. Look for where you're holding it
Let it unwind. Let it loose. Let your upper back
relax. Let the
relaxation move down your back, down
into your lower back. Let go of all the tightness in your lower
back muscles. Just quickly
scan your upper back, mid back,
lower back, letting go of any tightness
that you can detect. Let it go
That tightness doesn't serve you.
and let go of any tightness that you can
detect in your buttocks. Let it go.
And allow the relaxation to move down into your
thighs and to your knees --
Just letting go. Give yourself the permission to let
go of the tightness. Let the
relaxation now move down into your calves
and down into your ankles
and feet and
just quickly scan your buttocks,
thighs, knees,
calves and feet and just let go of
any tightness in your lower body.
Just really truly let go
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Now take a deep breath
hold it, let it go
exhale
and just slowly open your eyes.
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You know what really surprised me?
Is that just thinking about relaxing the muscles actually did it.
It really worked.
There's a connection between mind and body
and what you just experienced was that connection.
That you can relax the muscles
you can relax your emotions and calm your mind.
And this is just a taste of it. As you work
with the other exercises that are contained in
the home study package that take you through 25 minutes
or 20 minutes of deep relaxation, as you develop
a body awareness of relaxation
you will find that you'll be able to access
that relaxation just about anywhere, anytime by
just quickly scanning your body.
this so that you're aware that you're not
holding the squash racket too tightly
or you can use it in different aspects of your life. You can use it when you're
driving down the highway, you notice that you're white knuckle driving.
Or that your shoulders are up around your ears or
you catch yourself clenching your jaw tightly. This is an
awareness that develops with practice and it's precious and
it can really make such a difference
in every aspect of your life including your overall
athletic performance.
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all desire. But staying healthy and feeling
good can be quite a challenge especially
with the stresses that pervade every aspect of our lives today.
Everyone's aware that regular exercise
and eating healthfully are two essential steps
to well being. In this series, you'll
learn about a third step -- Relaxation.
Not just sitting around but some specific activities
that trigger your body's relaxation response.
You'll learn about the importance of deep
relaxation for reducing the harmful effects of
stress along with a series of easy to do
relaxation skills. And through our weekly
questionnaire, you'll gain an awareness of how
stress may be affecting you. So get a paper and pencil
ready and join us as we take the next step
to well being.
[music]
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Deepak: Physical exercise is often
pointed to as an antidote to stress but even here
it can get awfully competitive.
Could the pressure to win increase our level of
stress? And what about stress from the workplace? Can it reduce
our enjoyment of the game and perhaps even impair our
performance?
[music] [noise]
[music] [noise]
In this week's program, we'll see what
part stress plays in physical activity and this week's
questionnaire will help you recognize the role of stress in your
game and we'll give you some ideas of what you can do about it.
Eli Bay, director of the
Relaxation Response Institute in Toronto is a pioneer
in the teaching of relaxation skills for stress
management.
Eli: For many of us, life is becoming not only
more stressful but more sedentary all the time.
Our jobs are physically inactive or repetitive. We
sit at computers, in our cars, at home watching
television, none of which is properly relaxing.
We know that getting out for some physical enjoyment is
essential for well being but often just the thought of exercise
is not enjoyable. Sometimes our bodies feel
great, we feel light, we feel energetic. But other times,
we feel heavy and lethargic and even when you're active
you tend to have those moments when you're at your best and other
moments when you seem to make all the wrong moves.
Now, most of us bring a lot of stress into our games. The stress from
work is added to the physical stress of the game as well as the
emotional stress of wanting to do well. We can
really learn a lot from the way athletes train.
Part of the way peak performing athletes train these days
involves learning how to manage stress through relaxation.
The techniques that they use are a little more
sophisticated than what we will be using but the principles are just the
same.
Dr. Bird: I think relaxation is
absolutely essential to an athlete's performance
They have to have optimal
muscle tension, optimal concentration,
optimal emotional control and relaxation
techniques teach you that self regulation
Dr. Wilson: The cornerstone of self regulation
is breathing. And you can take it
from the Oriental art, 2000 BC talked about
breathing, the techniques of learning breathing, it's the basis
of meditation, yoga, a lot of those types of things.
We now have North American proof in terms of
the research medically, psychologically and in
sport performance there's a tremendous impact
on performance from breathing. From either holding your breath
or more importantly, hyperventilation.
And that can not
only mess up your body but it can mess up your mind.
One of the key skills that I
require the athletes to learn is to breathe. It sounds simple
you can breathe with doing nothing but to learn
to do it under stress and to do it properly for a lot of people
is a problem. And they're not aware of it unless you monitor
them, train them and then they can also learn
to enhance it in terms of
for energy, using breathing to energize as well
as to relax. It's the fastest, quickest
way to self control.
Dr. Jensen: There's no question that stress
has an impact on our athlete's performance. We only have to
look at the difference between practice behaviour
and competition behaviour. A figure skater, for
example, lands 2 triple jumps in a competition
and they can do 5 or 6 in a practice. The morning of
the competition, clearly we're dealing with a psychological
problem. We're dealing with something that has to do with the way
they perceive the competition as compared to the practice.
Anne: When I go into a race and there's pressure to win a medal
for us or there's always the pressure to win the nationals.
Because I've always won them and
I am a has-been if I don't and get no credit if I do sort of
thing. That kind of pressure, that's
very difficult to cope with.
Dr. Wilson: You've got to know
yourself. The more you know yourself in thinking sports
not all sports. The ideal for us in
a lot of sports, if you can be automatic
just go on automatic pilot and react in a lot of
sports and having worked with sprinters, the ideal thing is leave your
brains in the locker room or in the library and just react.
That's ideal. But most of the time it doesn't work.
In sports like sailing or wrestling where you have
to think on your feet, you've got to know what it is
you're likely to miss because of who you are.
Robert: I feel the stress management work that we've
accomplished has basically kept the 3 of us sailing together
I think that our light air performances were
such that without that, we would have broken up
as a group because it was becoming very hard to
deal with each other in the boat.
John: One of the biggest things
I used to have, before competition I used to get really nervous.
Very nervous, almost to the point of being sick.
And Bob was getting tighter thinking that I was going
to screw up every turn of the boar. So
what happened is Sue basically was able to relax me
and I was making less mistakes and Bob
was happier with the way my learning curve
was going along. So that probably kept
us together as a crew. Otherwise
I don't know if all would have been able to put up with me very much
longer in the boat.
Robert: Well, a happy boat performs well
That's exactly it. We've all got the skill sets
A happy boat really translates those into
results.
John: We have to interact between each other and
if there's a personality conflict that we
can't put aside because
and stress really brings out personality conflicts
the boat just won't go.
Dr. Wilson: And the more they can start to understand who
they are, what they do under certain situations
in a particular under stressful situation, the more likely they are
gonna pick up cues as to when they're off target.
Dr. Jensen: The high level performance mind set is very different
than even the national level mindset.
This creates some serious problems.
Because what happens is, people get to a certain
level of performance by just
busting their backside, by working hard, by
winning isn't the only thing, it's everything, by
you gotta give 110%, you gotta be focused, you gotta be
strong. And that may even get them on the national team. But to
move to a world class level
you gotta move to a whole different mindset. We're moving
to much higher levels. The difference between number
1 and number 50 on the money winning circuit on the professional golf
tour is I think 1.21 strokes per round.
It's phenomenal. It's a very hard game now. So more and
more elite athletes have to learn to acquire these skills.
Dr. Bird: I have been working with Mark Klepp who is an international
rifle shooter and it is a precision sport.
So we have to concentrate on
a great deal of very precise
physical control over the situation. Also important
for emotional control and mental control.
You can have your worst performance if your stress
is not under control. You need to fire that gun
in between heart beats for optimal
control. The beat of the heart will influence
how precise you can be with that shot and
of course with the respiration. So you hold your breath
and then fire in between each breath.
So that's the kind
of high precision control that
you need if you're doing something like shooting.
One method of monitoring the body's response
to stress is to use physiological equipment
in order to feed back the stress responses to the
individual so their awareness is heightened.
For example, if they're a shooter, there needs to be a great
deal of precision in the muscles that hold that gun
And so I relate the amount of tension
that it says on the bio-feedback equipment to
how the particular muscles feel in
my hand that's holding the gun. And with Mark, he
was very very aware of his
muscle control then we helped him to become
very aware of the breathing because this is very
important skill in shooting.
Also we need to monitor heart rate
and then the optimal control comes
in brain wave control and until
an athlete becomes that
aware and has that much self regulation
I don't think they'll ever be world caliber.
Mart: When I was
in Munich in 1988, I shot a world
record in one phase of the competition
and at that time, what I was actually going through
and setting a world record I
realized getting towards the end of the course of fire
that I was actually going to do it. And suddenly my heart rate
went through the roof. I thought what am I going to do?
The rifle started bouncing all over the place
Shooting is such a precision sport
like if you move the end of the barrel
the thickness of a human hair, you actually move
from the 10 ring out to the 9 ring.
So what
I saw was this rifle moving, it felt like
almost an inch at a time which would put me right off the
target. It was like, this is it. I have to do this and
execute a shot. It went off really
funny, I didn't believe I had shot a world record
and I looked through the scope immediately after and it was a dead center 10
All those skills of doing
muscle relaxation, doing the mental rehearsal
mental visualization and having a routine to follow
all came to play at that particular time in my
shooting career and I executed everything as I
wanted to and hence I got a world record.
Deepak: So, what can ordinary people like me learn from all this
to help me enjoy physical activity more and maybe even improve
performance?
Dr. Bird: These skills don't spoil one's
fun. I know you're out there primarily
to have a good time and that's important and get some
exercise and be outdoors and that's excellent.
But if at the time you want to concentrate, for example,
you're going to drive or you're going to do a putt,
then have that skill, that ability
to for instance, take a deep breath, relax, let the shoulders
drop, see yourself as calm, in control
See yourself as being successful
in this particular shot. Then you can
focus on what you have to do for those few minutes.
And then you go back to walking down the golf course and enjoying
yourself.
Dr. Wilson: My objective in sport
in terms of I don't believe necessarily in
excellence being this thing of winning. I'm in there
in the scenes and I'm concerned with people getting the best out of
themselves. And to do that, generally you have to have
a balanced life. If their social life, their school
life, their employment life is somewhat in balance
they're going to be able to be more aware of themselves
and so my objective in most cases, we
end up talking about the total person. Because the same mistakes
they make sailing are gonna be the same mistakes they make in the
office and the more places they get to practice these skills
then, the better they're going to be.
Dr. Jensen: One of the things
that athletes learn to do very well that we can all learn
to do is learn to act like you have
time because then at the body level and by breathing
properly and at the mind level and at the feeling level,
we put in the same message. It's a very congruent message
Ben Hogan said on the days when he played best,
he walked slow, he talked slow and he chewed slow.
Deepak: I don't get a lot of physical exercise
but I do some fitness walking and I race a sailboat.
I also like to play squash for fun but I like to win too.
I know some practice will improve
my performance in all of these areas. I wonder
if stress is an issue at my level also?
Eli: Oh, most definitely.
But first of all, let me just say a couple of things about
your playing squash competitively or any sport competitively.
Research has determined that if you're a really
aggressive, competitive player, if you're a Type A personality
we talked about that last week, if you play your game with
that same need to win that you have in other areas of your life,
people can literally step off the squash court
or the hockey rink with more stress hormones in their bloodstream
after a good workout than before they went on.
So it seems really
important that you appreciate the attitude
that you have can determine your overall
stress levels. And stress affects our attitude.
If you have a lot of stress, if affects your
anxiety levels, muscle tensions,
ability to focus, negative expectations
and of course, you do need a certain amount of stress.
We all need a certain amount of stress to be at our best. But when you go
beyond that right amount of stress for you, then it starts having
a negative effect and it really does indeed impair
our overall performance.
One sports psychologist, Doctor
James Luhr did an exploration with
a group of athletes, interviewed dozens of athletes
and wanted to explore
and see what they were experiencing, what was their
inner climate, what was their emotional, physical, mental state?
When they were performing at their very best? And it was
out of his research that we've devised a questionnaire that will
give you some idea. So you can compare your inner climate
when you perform against these ideal
state.
Deepak: So,
I'm gonna compare my performance with some ideal
performance?
Eli: No. You're not comparing performance
you're comparing your own internal climate, your
own internal condition, your physical, mental, emotional state
against that which was experienced by top athletes
when they were in their ideal performance state.
In reality, that's not a common state for most athletes but
it's a state that they work towards and train to achieve.
Just look at the first question.
You generally feel relaxed and loose when performing.
You answer this with a yes or a no.
Just evaluate your own personal performance
against this ideal.
Researchers have generally
shown that as muscle tension
increases, performance tends to be reduced.
Next question. You usually feel a sense
of calmness and quiet inside.
You answer this with a yes or a no.
Doctor Luhr's research suggests that for many
sports activities the greater internal calm you can experience
the better you'll perform. The better will be your reactions.
So answer yes or no.
Next question. You don't feel anxious
or nervous very often. Again, research has shown
that as nervousness goes up, performance
tends to go down. Fourth question.
You feel charged with positive energy most of the time.
Deepak: There's something peculiar here in this question. Doesn't
high energy relate to stress?
Eli: We're not talking about being
pumped up. We're talking about a positive
energizing love of the game
enjoying it, it's fun. That's the kind of
positive energy that we're talking about here.
You mostly feel optimistic and positive about
your performance. The more positive your expectations,
the better will be your performance. The more negative your
expectations, the worse your performance. High performing
athletes are aware of any negative thoughts that they have
and they quickly put them aside. For some people this is
natural. For others it's really a question of training.
Next question. You feel a genuine sense of
fun and enjoyment in your play. Yes or no?
Dr. Luhr's studies revealed that enjoyment
played an important role when these athletes performed at their
best. The ability to play with a sense of fun
is something we should aim for in our recreational activities.
Next question. You feel mentally alert when you
perform. Mental alertness is one of
the keys to better performance.
The top athletes are alert. They have often an extraordinary
sense of alertness. They're aware of what's happening all around
them, they're able to respond quickly and effectively.
Next question.
You don't have difficulty focusing mentally and tuning in.
Yes or no.
In the ideal
performance state, athletes are concentrating very effectively on
what they have to do. They are able to ignore the crowd and other
distractions that come from both outside and inside.
Even from the competing thoughts within their own mind.
This is a skill that can be learned so look and see if this is true for you
or not. Next question.
You feel that you are really in control of yourself. Yes or no.
It seems the top athletes maintain an inner
control especially an emotional control. And that seems
to be absolutely crucial to top performance.
You generally find performing to be
effortless. When you tend to try hard,
your muscles tend to tighten up.
And tight muscles
tend to block effectiveness. If anything,
rather than trying harder, you should maybe be trying a bit softer.
Next question. Your performance tends
to be automatic and spontaneous.
Yes or no. It seems that
the ideal athlete's find that they're at their
very best when they don't have to think, when it's just an
automatic reaction, when the golf swing is just an automatic
reaction. There is no paralysis
by analysis. You don't worry about whether your elbow is straight
or you're coming through. It's just a natural
automatic flow.
Deepak: Now that's very interesting Eli. I have a good example of the
2 extremes of what you're talking about from my own life.
I race a sailboat and I play squash.
My sailing experience would get a lot of
yeses on this questionnaire. But squash, on the other
hand, wouldn't get very many yeses at all.
In fact, I can see a big difference in the way I perform in those 2
activities. On the sailboat, there have
been 3 of us racing together for the last 5 years
and we don't allow any shouting or that kind
of Type A behaviour.
We have a good sense of fun, we're there to play.
And our performance over the last few years has come together and
we're winning a lot of races. Now squash
on the other hand, I don't feel relaxed
I'm usually playing competitors far better than
I am and they control the ball better
than me and so I have to race to get at the ball
and my performance is not automatic or spontaneous.
Eli: You've just used the test really quite
well because you've seen the difference
in your performance states when you're
playing squash and when you're sailing.
What I would like to do is to illustrate
a very simple method that you can
use in your sport, certainly on the squash
court or before you play squash that can help you
to get into this ideal state so you can really
bring that carryover from your successful activity
into one that really isn't quite as successful.
Deepak: That's great.
I'd like to try it.
Eli: Why don't you put what you have down and sit comfortably
And for those of you at home, you get much
more out of this program by actually doing the exercise with us
rather just watching. So follow along with us.
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Close your eyes and put your concentration
onto your forehead and just let your forehead relax.
Let your forehead become loose and smooth
and just let go of any tightness
any tension that you can detect.
The word to relax in Latin literally means to let go.
In ancient Rome they used to relax prisoners from jail.
So when I say to relax, just let go, let it
go, let it become smooth and loose
and relax. Now, put your
concentration into your eye lids and let all the
muscles in your eyelids relax.
Of all the muscles in your body, your eyelids are the
easiest to relax. So just allow the muscles in your
eyelids to completely relax.
Let that relaxation now move down into your cheeks.
And down into your jaw.
Many of us carry a lot of tightness in the jaw --
A lot of tension in the jaw. We don't even notice it.
What I'm asking you to do now is just notice,
notice if you're holding onto tension that you don't need.
Let your jaw relax. Let it go.
Now relax your lips.
All the muscles in your lips relax. Let your lips part slightly.
And allow your tongue
to relax. Let your tongue just become loose and heavy
So you just let go of all the tightness in your
facial muscles. On your own now,
quickly scan your facial muscles in your mind's eye.
Your forehead, your eyelids, your cheeks, your jaw.
Your lips your tongue. Let go of any tightness
that you can detect. Now let that
loose relaxed comfortable feeling move down into
neck and shoulders. Just scan
for your neck and shoulders. If you can catch any tension
let it go. Let your neck relax. Let your
shoulders drop.
Let that loose relaxed feeling move down
into your upper arms.
Down into your forearms.
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Down into your hands.
Right to the tips of your fingers. It's just a letting go.
So quickly, on your own, just scan your neck and
shoulders, arms and hands
and just let go of any tension that you can notice, that you detect
Let it go. Give yourself the permission
to relax and to enjoy it.
Now put your
concentration onto your throat and allow your throat to relax.
Let
the relaxation move down into your chest
down to your
solar plexus. Let go of any tightness that you can detect
in your upper torso.
Let your solar plexus relax and
allow the relaxation to move down into your stomach
Into belly. Again, many of us carry a lot of
tightness in the stomach. Let it go. Let your stomach relax.
Now
just quickly, on your own, scan your throat, chest,
solar plexus and stomach, letting go of any
tightness that you don't need.
Now direct your
awareness to your upper back, between your shoulder blades.
Let go of any tightness. Look for where you're holding it
Let it unwind. Let it loose. Let your upper back
relax. Let the
relaxation move down your back, down
into your lower back. Let go of all the tightness in your lower
back muscles. Just quickly
scan your upper back, mid back,
lower back, letting go of any tightness
that you can detect. Let it go
That tightness doesn't serve you.
Now put your awareness into your buttocks
and let go of any tightness that you can
detect in your buttocks. Let it go.
And allow the relaxation to move down into your
thighs and to your knees --
Just letting go. Give yourself the permission to let
go of the tightness. Let the
relaxation now move down into your calves
and down into your ankles
and feet and
just quickly scan your buttocks,
thighs, knees,
calves and feet and just let go of
any tightness in your lower body.
Just really truly let go
[music]
Now take a deep breath
hold it, let it go
exhale
and just slowly open your eyes.
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Deepak: It's a very interesting exercise
You know what really surprised me?
Is that just thinking about relaxing the muscles actually did it.
It really worked.
Eli: Yes.
There's a connection between mind and body
and what you just experienced was that connection.
That you can relax the muscles
you can relax your emotions and calm your mind.
Deepak: So, it's doing quite a bit for me?
Eli: Oh yes.
And this is just a taste of it. As you work
with the other exercises that are contained in
the home study package that take you through 25 minutes
or 20 minutes of deep relaxation, as you develop
a body awareness of relaxation
you will find that you'll be able to access
that relaxation just about anywhere, anytime by
just quickly scanning your body.
And you can use
this so that you're aware that you're not
holding the squash racket too tightly
or you can use it in different aspects of your life. You can use it when you're
driving down the highway, you notice that you're white knuckle driving.
Or that your shoulders are up around your ears or
you catch yourself clenching your jaw tightly. This is an
awareness that develops with practice and it's precious and
it can really make such a difference
in every aspect of your life including your overall
athletic performance.
Deepak: Thanks very much, Eli.
Eli: A pleasure.
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Program Length: 26:50 min
About the Program:
Program 4 Playing Better, shows how relaxation can improve your enjoyment and performance in recreational sports by exploring how professional athletes cope with stress.