Struggling To Achieve Peak Performance: Insights from a Sports Psychologist

Uncover the secrets to conquering performance anxiety in baseball from the unique perspective of sports psychologist Dr. Paige Roberts. As a former Division I athlete, Dr. Roberts shares her compelling journey of overcoming physical injuries and mental challenges that pushed her toward a career in sports psychology. We discuss how the slow pace of baseball can fuel anxiety and explore practical techniques to help players manage and reduce these feelings. Additionally, Dr. Roberts opens up about the profound impact of losing friends to suicide, emphasizing the critical importance of mental health support for athletes.

Discover the power of emotional processing for young athletes and learn why allowing children to express their feelings after games without parental interference can make a significant difference. This episode challenges traditional methods, advocating for a more holistic approach that involves addressing physical sensations and emotions. Learn how creating a safe space for young athletes to process their experiences can help release stored energy, reduce performance anxiety, and prevent negative consequences like substance abuse and a dysregulated nervous system.

Explore cutting-edge techniques to optimize sports performance, including brain spotting and energy alignment. Dr. Roberts explains how brain spotting, a method discovered by Dr. David Grand, can help athletes release stored negative experiences and improve their performance using eye manipulation and bilateral sounds. Practical examples, including work with Olympic athletes, illustrate the effectiveness of these approaches. Additionally, we discuss the benefits of whistling, humming, smiling, and belly breathing to achieve an alpha flow state, maintain a positive mindset, and visualize successful outcomes. Join us for an insightful session packed with actionable strategies to enhance mental readiness and performance in sports.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Today on the Athlete One podcast, former Division One, athlete sports psychologist, paige Roberts, shares ways to excel in crucial situations, compete better than you practice and how to achieve peak performance.

Speaker 2: 0:24

You're locked in to Athlete One, a podcast for athletes and coaches Coming to you from Dublin, ohio, here to bring you expert advice, insightful conversations and powerful stories from guests who play or coach sports. Now veteran high school baseball coach and someone who has jumped out of perfectly good airplanes your host, ken Carpenter.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Hello and welcome to episode 106 of the Athlete One podcast. I'm your host, ken Carpenter, and the Athlete One podcast is powered by the netting professionals improving programs one facility at a time. The netting pros specialize in the design, fabrication and installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes backstops, batting cages, bp Turtles, screens, ball carts and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches and cubbies. The netting pros also work with football, soccer, lacrosse and golf courses. Netting professionals continue to provide quality products and services to many recreational, high school, college and professional fields and facilities throughout the country. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. Or you can visit them online at wwwnettingproscom. Online at wwwnettingproscom. You can also check out Netting Pros on Twitter, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn for all their latest products and projects.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Be sure to follow us on all socials, at AthleteOnePodcast, and hit up our website at athleteonenet. That's athlete the number one dot net. This is the Athlete One Podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Today we're exploring the topic that's often whispered about but rarely addressed head on performance anxiety in baseball. Baseball is a game of inches where every pitch, swing of the bat or catch can make or break a player's confidence. The pressure to perform, whether it's in front of a crowd or during a critical moment in a game, can be overwhelming. Performance anxiety is more than just nerves. It's a psychological hurdle that can be paralyzing to most of the talented players that play the game. It stems from fear of failure, the weight of expectations and the high stakes of competition. Unlike other sports, baseball's slower pace gives players ample time to overthink and doubt themselves, leading into a cycle of anxiety that can affect their performance on the field. In today's episode we delve into baseball players and particularly the susceptible performance anxiety, and we discuss strategies to overcome it with sports psychologist Paige Roberts. Hello and welcome to the Athlete One podcast. I'm your host, ken Carpenter, joining me today. I'm excited to bring you sports psychologist Dr Paige Roberts. Dr Roberts, thanks for taking the time to join me on the Athlete One podcast.

Speaker 3: 3:59

Yeah, I'm grateful to be here.

Speaker 1: 4:01

Well, as a former Division I athlete. What inspired you to become a sports psychologist?

Speaker 3: 4:08

I had a coach that was not very exercise science informed and basically he was overtraining all of us. We were running about 100 miles a week, telling us if we gained weight that we would get slower, which is none of that's true or within the exercise science world. So what ended up happening is I got stress fractures throughout my um, shins or, uh, my tibias, and then I also had a stress fracture in my fibula, which is where the foot connects to um, the shin, and um, it finally broke through. I was running a two mile race and, uh, I ended up then with a cast and had to sit out, and that was very difficult for me at the time, obviously. And so we did win state in Colorado. We did really well, but basically everyone on our team ended up with, like an eating disorder, stress fractures because we weren't getting enough nutrients. He was overtraining us, and so I ended up seeing a sports psych, or he was a licensed clinical social worker, and so it was kind of like normal to me seeing a sports psych at 17. I'm nearly 41 years old now, so, uh, it just looked like a path that I wanted to take. So I ended up, um, getting my legs rehabbed.

Speaker 3: 5:20

I was told I would never run again because of the severity of the stress fractures. I was told I would never run again because of the severity of the stress fractures. But what ended up happening is when I got to college I was studying exercise science because I was really interested in physical therapy and helping athletes in that way and had to go through my whole process of rehab and even returning to some running. But when I got to college he was my advisor and he was the exercise physiologist for our college and he trained us with science and he was able to make programs for me to where I wasn't constantly running. I was swimming a lot and running in the water and using elliptical and running uphill as opposed to flat surface. So it really was amazing that I got to continue running. But it was all science-based. So it was really cool because a lot of athletes once they're told oh, you'll never run again, and they just kind of like, all right, I'm done, you know all that kind of stuff. So it's really neat experience the working on the athlete I met, uh. Or working on the mountain. I met more athletes right and past Olympians, uh, from steamboat Springs, Colorado. More Olympians come out of there than anywhere in the world.

Speaker 3: 6:25

So, a lot of athletes and, um, I had a friend who ended up completing suicide. Well, it was the second friend, the athlete that completed suicide, and it was literally 10 years later. Uh, first one, when I was at college. He was the second string quarterback and he took his life with a hunting rifle. And so I was 19 then, and so at 29, this other friend, he took his own life with a hunting rifle and I was like, oh wow, this is horrible for one and two. You know the second friend he was only 23. And he just graduated from a smaller state school in Colorado where he played lacrosse and he was also a downhill skier.

Speaker 3: 7:06

And so I decided at that time that, okay, there's this huge mental stigma. You know, third leading cause of death, you know, of suicide is that's how athletes die. And you're like, oh my gosh. And then kind of looking at other stats of high performers, and 50% of individuals that complete suicide never even told anyone that they were suffering or never even sought help. So I went on this like mission to shift it to training your brain, right. So my business was performance neuro training.

Speaker 3: 7:35

As of recent, I left Seattle and I've been in Santa Monica, California, for the last year and a half and I've been training others in this alpha and printing which other sports psychs, coaches, parents, whoever wants to learn it, to work with their kids, because it's a very specific process of just dividing and conquering and going through all the past developmental stuff and going through to the sports injuries, sports criticisms, all that, what that looks like, and then the worst case scenario, the desensitizing to what could happen when you're out there competing, so, like for a skier, you're like, okay, so you're going down the course, what could happen? Well, I could catch an edge and I could fall on this. So you're prepping the nervous system to not react and respond if some of those things occur. So they stay in that flow state. So that was the journey of all of this and it's been about 11 years now going on 12, I guess.

Speaker 3: 8:25

And uh, it's just an amazing to work with these athletes and, uh, prevent them from developing things like the yips or bulking or blocks or or in those types of things, as well as getting them out of that disassociative, because the brain disassociates from the body and we naturally do that as athletes because the lactate threshold and training, but, um, we are able to reconnect them back up so that they're like they were 10 years old again and able to just play freely and go out there and have fun, and no more hesitating I'm gonna talk about what you would recommend for high school coaches, unless, since I primarily talk baseball um For this question, if a player looks great in practice but struggles once the games start, what do you recommend in that situation?

Speaker 3: 9:17

There's this other concept of the trauma memory network. When we elicit cortisol, when the pressure is on to play, we are accessing every single memory where cortisol was present, because it's a survival mechanism, every single memory where cortisol was present, because it's a survival mechanism. And so that's why you see athletes do amazing in practice and then don't do well during the game. So it is that exact thing of you have to go back through and reprocess and desensitize these memories. And when we talk about fully processing things, it's going back to the experience sights, sounds and smells and you're going okay, you're out there on the field right before the person hits you. And then how are you feeling right now? Oh, you know, I was kind of anxious. Okay, where do you feel that in your body? And then you get hit, okay, so now that you're hit, going back to that memory, uh, where do you feel that? It's like, wow, I feel that in my chest, because a lot of times it's the vagus nerve and it's like that shock kind of feeling. And so it's like, okay, well, you're laying there, the athletic trainer, you can't move your legs. What's going on there? It's like, wow, I'm scared. Oh, this is awful, you know, like my season could be over and and all of that. That's. That's literally how we fully process it, because in the moment you just don't have time to process it. So, with our memory, we intake, like every second of every day, as much information as an encyclopedia. So we're organizing it based off past experience and so if it was a traumatic experience or stressful experience, it's getting organized, as in that memory network, as a survival traumatic experience. And the same goes for, like the positive experiences. So you can actually work with an athlete on conditioning, a powerful body feeling or a resource for them to get into when they go out there to play, so that they're not going into that criticism, fight, fight, freeze sensation. So it's really interesting concepts to be able to shift your nervous system, which is thoughts and remembering instances.

Speaker 3: 11:06

But what the coaches need to do. So you can access the sounds that I use on my website right, and they're like 22 bucks. It goes to the sound healer guy that was really capable of making this, these sounds but you can put them on your phone and listen to those sounds. And after each day at practice and this is what I have my athletes do anyways, for 10 minutes, just listen to it and I want you to go through the things that were scary or didn't serve you, or things times that within the day that you felt like you didn't perform well, whether it be in a math test or got called on in class and felt anxious. But also you know baseball specifically it's like, okay, so you missed that strike.

Speaker 3: 11:44

So you're going through a very with a fine tooth comb, the entire practice of going through the things that didn't serve you and accessing, okay, well, where do I feel that? My body when I struck out, um, and I should have hit that strike, it's like, oh man, I felt it was embarrassing, like felt that my body, my chest, whatever that looks like and, um, just fully processing the experience and emotions associated with the things that didn't serve you that day. So in you know, coaches get a little afraid of this, like I've had so many like reach out and ask, okay, well, what can we do for the mental game? And it's like, well, what about all the athletes listening to the sounds after the game and sitting there and saying the things that they would like to improve upon? So like, yeah, when I was out there in shortstop, I want to improve upon being able to, you know, field the ball better or throw the ball faster to the first base or something like that. So it really is accessing, um, the maladaptation and the feelings and fully experiencing the experience, or else the nervous system just gets locked up.

Speaker 3: 12:46

So if the coach is open enough to sit with their athletes and even going through just the things that didn't serve them and kind of how, what thought process or what belief system they created in with its shortstop or whatever, it could be like, well, yeah, I'm not going to be able to get the ball to first base in time. It's like, okay, well, where do you feel that? It's like, oh, I feel that in my chest because it makes me worried. Or I feel it in my legs because they're kind of vibrating. You know those specific spots that we kind of hold that fight, fight, freezy feeling when we're out there trying to perform. So it's all that. Or you could even have them.

Speaker 3: 13:19

Listen to the sounds and I have a lot of people do this as just a self-practice Listen to the sounds and journal, write it all out what was, what didn't serve you, what emotions were associated, what negative, maladaptive belief system you created, and then tear it up and throw it away. So there are things that coaches can do to kind of play with this technique. And then if a coach wanted to get trained in it, it would be a very specific directive where I have the athletes get into the ready position with their ball, with a glove and actually going through the experience of what can happen. The worst case scenario and it can also just be even having them go through this, you know, of course, listening to the sounds, going through their life adversities of like yeah, my dad was never around. It's like well, how'd that make you feel? It's like well, it made me sad because I didn't have him as a role model and that kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 14:10

Or I was bullied a lot on this one team or in sometimes even it's unfortunately parents who don't heal their past traumas and all their stuff. Sometimes they have maladaptive parenting so they can be just hard on their kids and living through their kids if they didn't achieve their sports goals. So it can be hard sometimes to have the parents do this type of process. But if you have the parents that there's a safe space for that.

Speaker 3: 14:38

I've talked about have the kids throw on the sounds and on the drive home from the game, just being able to freely talk about man. You know, I felt like I didn't do well when I tried to steal that base and got out and oh and then when I was up to bat that second time it's like I should have hit that um strike and makes me feel bad, and so just kind of dumping, without um the parents needing to come in and like help or problem solve, or because that's just not how our nervous system works. We must release and process emotions and experience without um someone's being uncomfortable with it and be like, oh no, but it's going to be okay, everything's going to be fine. And it's a very counter approach to what we typically talk about with sports psych around cognitive behavior therapy, positive self-talk and yes, positive self-talk is amazing. But we must clear the maladaptive patterns and or essentially decondition the body's experience from these past adversities and injuries mom or dad after the game.

Speaker 1: 15:38

It's you're. You're just saying, you know, pop in the sounds and just kind of let them talk about the what went on during the game. And, as a parent, what do you do? You're just listening. You're not saying, oh, it's going to be better or yeah, you really screwed up, anything like that.

Speaker 3: 16:09

No, just listening. And again it's we talk about. You can only sit with someone's stuff or their activation in the moment if you're at peace with your past, right. So most people get very uncomfortable with feelings. Most people get very uncomfortable with people who are in the moment having a, you know, a panic attack or being very upset in the moment, but it's really thinking about like, ok, I'm not responsible to calm this person down. They just need someone to listen and hear them and allow for them to process this experience. And so I think that's the biggest paradigm shift that we all need to be looking at in society, whether your kids are athletes or pianists or whatever it comes to when it's performance-based, that we just need to allow a safe space for kids to process their emotions.

Speaker 3: 16:58

It seems so, I guess, basic, but people have a real hard time with it. I mean, the literature shows us that most therapists can't even sit with a suicidal client and they're afraid to. It's like wow, that's fascinating, because with suicide ideation, it's oftentimes individuals just want a part of them to die. So if your athlete is suicidal or exhibiting some of those things, it's like they literally just need someone to listen and be there for them. They don't necessarily need to go into problem solving, but it's like, okay, I'm doing so bad, I'm freezing, I got the yips, I'm playing baseball, my life's going to be over because I'm going to lose my college scholarship, all those things. It's just literally processing through that and wanting that part of you to die. That is having that negative experience. And same thing with, like addiction and stuff. When you start working with some higher level athletes that, um, are utilizing substances and you know some of your like NHL players and some of that stuff that are partying and that kind of lifestyle, um, oftentimes with the depression that comes with that. So the head injuries, the more neuro inflammation from using substances, um, they, they can want that addictive part of them to die. That awful feeling that they get when they're utilizing those substances, trying to call calm their nervous system, to sleep or something. And I think that's one of the more indicative things of an individual's nervous system being dysregulated is, at a certain point in time, they start utilizing nervous system depressants like alcohol and marijuana and a convulsant kind of thing to calm down after a game, to go to sleep, and you're like, okay, well, that means you're stuck on in that sympathetic nervous system state and you're not able to get to parasympathetic and actually sleep.

Speaker 3: 18:32

And same thing, if athletes aren't having dreams, we know that they're too hot. They're in that sympathetic because we're supposed to be able to drop into theta brainwave and be able to have, you know, the dreams, which is interesting because I still believe you know Freud's old, you know. So it's like an atlantis analysis. I was very old but um, he talks about how, uh, dreams are when we are releasing emotions at night and so kind of processing through things on a subconscious level. So dreaming is very important. So if athletes aren't dreaming, we know that they're um kind of getting into this fight, fight, freezy, and in athletes it's a catch-all. I have performance anxiety. It's like that means you're in a trauma response of fight, fight, freeze. I mean that's all it is.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Well, hitting in baseball is difficult, and what can players and coaches do to move on from, say, a previous at-bat or, you know, say they strike out in a crucial situation? And then they come back to the dugout, then they take that onto the field and then it leads to making a defensive error.

Speaker 3: 19:40

Literally, they can sit there and the moment they come back in and say, man, okay, where are you feeling this strikeout, what emotions are coming up with this? Because the second you access where the emotion is held in the body, it's just energy. We're just biophoton energy, and so things get stuck, and so the mind. The second that you bring the awareness to, like I felt my chest or I felt my hands, Cause a lot of times the athlete's hands will get like numb and tingly and um, they're literally. You are releasing that. Um's undischarged is what we call it. It's undischarged shock from the nervous system. So in that moment, if the coach just says that to him, okay, well, how are you feeling about it? It's like, oh, I feel like a failure, I feel like I suck, and so that's okay, all right, man, okay, you release that. Now get back out there and you're reset, you got this. So that kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 20:27

Okay, that makes sense. Well, earlier you talked about brain spotting and how it can improve perceived sports failures. Can you kind of explain what brain spotting is and how that would work with, say, a high school or college baseball player?

Speaker 3: 20:44

Yeah, and so I got trained in brain spotting right away because it really helped me and, like I said, I've taken a little step further and integrating a little bit more to make it better, but with the brain spotting process. So Dr David Grand found that if we cover one eye or the other, we access different memories when we're going back to the through this trauma memory network. So you cover one eye or the other you listen to he was using just bilateral, so sounds like go back and forth. So that's that hypnotherapy component. And so it will drop you in to the supramental energy field or the subconscious programming, where all of our matrixes of, by the time you're 25, 97% of your experience is already determined based off past experience. So how you're organizing information you don't have a lot of conscious control of. So it's all like if someone had a really terrible childhood. Um, you know, uh, that's that whole time Like they are programmed to be hypervigilant and, uh, dysregulated and in that sympathetic nervous system state. So most experiences were perceiving them and storing the most negative. So we drop them in and then we have the athletes say uh, you know, they keep striking out.

Speaker 3: 21:48

It's like, okay, well, you're going to tell me the athletes say, uh, you know, they keep striking out. It's like okay, well, you're going to tell me the story of you know, each time that you've struck out. And the second they start to go okay, well, I was at you know such and such as in Cincinnati, on the field, and, uh, I knew it was a good pitch, but, uh, I froze, or dah, dah, dah, and it's like okay. And so then you have them orient their eyes to a position or hold them where they go, instantly when you, when they access that feeling. And so what David Grand found is that you had to hold the eye position in the gaze, and so he uses pointers and you can do this in person and you can even do it on the computer.

Speaker 3: 22:28

But to say, okay, well, where do you feel that striking out in Cincinnati the strongest in your body, and watch this and you tell me where you felt the most. And they'll be like, oh, I felt the most right there. It's like okay, so go completely through the story and then, um, continue to tell me the other stories of striking out. Essentially, so the held eye position allows for that full release, cause what we do is we access information in the visual field and you've seen me do it all the whole time. It's like I'm always accessing things Um, and I'm very uh, I'm ADD, neurodiverse, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3: 23:04

Like both athletes, we have like a really insane nervous system and um, really good reaction times and so on, but we're, we move a lot Right Um. So with athletes, we have like a really insane nervous system and really good reaction times and so on, but we're, we move a lot right. So with athletes, you'll see that they're accessing memories all over the place, and so it's just the orientation and we call it like a reflexive cue, right. So it's like okay, so you shut your eyes, oh, why is it the top of the ski resort? You know, going down the course, and when I went through the one, you can have someone shut their eyes and find it too. And so the second that I hit the patch of ice and I started to fall, it's like, okay, where do you feel that money? Oh, I felt my chest. Okay, open your eyes and hold them where they go and you will exact, you will orient to the eye position. So manipulation of the eyes is what it's all about. Emdr has that neuro-linguistic programming, has that matrix re-infronting, has that brain spotting, has that, and so does the alpha imprinting what I created. It has that because we must manipulate the eyes, um, to access these memories. And you know, the brain is like a 60 to 80% visual, so it's really interesting in some respects. And then also, when it comes to having an athlete clear their whole visual field of the worst case scenarios, especially like a contact sport, right With football, it's like you're going okay, I want you to go ahead and just take your own pen or pencil and, because they're online, I just want you to go all the way and just follow this and follow this and tell me if any experiences come up that are negative or any worries about someone hitting you while you're running down the field, and so you're clearing their visual path, because you can actually have a visual cue that could be negative. So you can actually clear any memories that could be associated with failure from the visual path.

Speaker 3: 24:48

And there's this one. It was really funny. I had this athlete. She was at the Olympics and she was going in and having her shoulder worked on because she'd it was subloxating a lot. This was a snowboard, half-pipe athlete, and so Kara Baxter, she's this PT. She was isolating the eyes because she would find weakness with one eye covered or the other one not. And so David said that the eyes one will rationalize a reasoned experience and one will be the activation of the experience. So this is just the beginning of knowing that we need to manipulate the eyes within and around the nervous system states, and you see it in functional neurology, with chiropractors too, so they'll cover one eye or the other to strengthen certain neural pathways and so on, physically. So it's really fascinating.

Speaker 1: 25:37

That's interesting. That's something I wish I would have known about a long time ago, that's for sure. Well, let me ask you this If an athlete or a parent of an athlete wanted to try this, how do they go about doing it and is it something where, like, they reach out to you, and are there costs to it? I mean, I'm sure you know nothing's free.

Speaker 3: 26:01

I know. So it's like, yes, you can reach out to me and do a session. But the biggest thing is, like I said, if you wanted to start off with the baby steps of on the website, it's this green bar on my homepage and it says the bilateral binarial alpha imprinting sound. So clicking on that, buying it, downloading it on the phone so you can listen to it with headphones it's pertinent that you're listening to it with headphones because that's what's dropping you in and that bilateral component. And when we start to look at the, what we call it, the neuroocular component, or the eyes, and then the vestibular aspect of the nervous system is the hearing. They work hand in hand so they resource each other. Especially, like with concussions, you'll have individuals that'll be really sensitive to sound, dizzy, nauseated. That's the vestibular system working in overdrive, trying to fix things. Or they'll have the visual component of everyone's heard this they can't look at their iPhone, they're sensitive to light. So that's the neuroocular component being on overdrive, trying to fix things. So they work hand in hand. And so it's really interesting that you know you have to stimulate all the senses to be able to access the memory and fully release it. So you got the sounds you got, the sight feeling in your body smells. What did it smell like when you're out there on the field to fully bring up that memory and release it from our senses? It's a sensory thing also.

Speaker 3: 27:25

But yeah, so the baby steps of just starting with the sounds and having the kids sit there and write out their whole life laundry list, as David Grad would say, of all the traumas and things that didn't serve them. So I mean they can literally sit there with the sounds on and write the things out. Also, they can sit there and close their eyes and feel them. You know the fear of striking out, so where do they feel that in their body? And then open your eyes and hold them there and then even just talking out to the universe, saying like, okay, well, I'm scared that I'm going to lose my spot on the team. I have this big dream of going to college and playing and it could be gone and all that kind of stuff. So the worst case scenario is all the fears and all the emotions associated with that.

Speaker 3: 28:06

And then I do do trainings. It's okay. Well, here in the next month I'll have all my modules in a community that people can pay for to be a part of and then, weekly, they'd have access to me. They can watch the modules and then I can help them with their athletes. Whether it's parent coach sports, it doesn't matter, but then they can ask me questions about it to enhance the effectiveness of what it is. So that's where I'm leaning towards at this point in time, because I want so many people to help the athletes in their life, compared to just me working one-on-one with athletes, because I've only worked with a few thousand at this point in time and we have millions that need this, yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:45

So, basically, you know, you can set this up so that your program where coaches could reach out to you and then they learn it and then they're passing it on to their athletes, yep.

Speaker 3: 28:59

Yep.

Speaker 1: 29:00

Now let me ask you this what are some common mental traps that athletes fall into and how can they avoid them? Pick two or three.

Speaker 3: 29:13

The worst of the worst is coaches tend to want to push down an athlete to get them to come back stronger, which is completely counter to how our nervous system works. It's ridiculously counter. But a lot of coaches and even parents are still in that mindset that the criticism, the berating, the name calling is going to make the athlete more focused and more fired up to play, which is just not true. They can get into the flight, you know nervous system state, but they're not going to play openly there and a lot of them stay there. I mean, they're they're they're mad at their parents, they're mad at you know, and it's just like they're sick of being pushed down. But what it does to an athlete, especially one that's going to go on in college and further, by the time they get to that level, if the coach isn't criticizing them and they've had this history of criticism the whole time they start internally criticizing themselves and beating themselves up. So they're traumatizing their own brainstem, so they're actually pushing themselves more into the sympathetic nervous system state. So coach is out there. It doesn't work. You know, there's always neuromuscular fine-tuned corrections like okay, so I want you to, you know, keep your arm further back when you throw or this or this. Not, you're a such a, such a, such a. You're not listening me, you're doing this. This is the nervous system you just freeze. It's not going to help an athlete play better.

Speaker 3: 30:34

So, yes, there's correction, but there's a whole nother level of criticism and all these other things. That is not going to serve these athletes because Because, like I said, the second, they get away from this very critical coach. They're just internally doing it over and over. And it's like this pattern where you think and I was in a lot of this mindset too when I was younger of, like, oh my gosh, if I'm not constantly on guard and, and you know, criticizing myself and pushing myself and telling myself, you know, beating myself up about the test or whatever that I won't get better with things. But that's just opposite. So my advice again no criticism, all positive reinforcement and affirmation. So I start to have these kids that are, you know, d1 going to these MLB camps, like I want you to give yourself compliments for every single thing you've done right on the field.

Speaker 1: 31:18

How do we get athletes to decrease muscle guarding when competing and if you could explain muscle guarding?

Speaker 3: 31:25

So the muscle guarding aspect comes from being in that sympathetic nervous system state, that hypervigilant, the fight, fight freeze, because it's literally the freeze that you go into and you can simply have them do some mental shifts that pop them into alpha frequency in the moment. So that would be humming, whistling, laughing and smiling, and it kind of you know tricks their competition. If the whole team is just smiling, right, the whole team is smiling, popping them in the alpha flow state. So those are the ways to, in the moment, hack the nervous system to get them out of the sympathetic state or beta wave into alpha flow state. So, and those things are fairly easy.

Speaker 3: 32:09

And the other thing too that does it also is a fire, so like a candle or a fire, it's 11 Hertz. So we, we align with energy and so even if, like, the whole team started whistling, they're all going to collectively be at the same vibratory pattern and in alpha flow state. So you could sit there and have the whole team whistle or a hum or and, like I said, the smiling piece is quiet. So they can always do the smiling piece and we typically shift our homeostasis at about 10 minutes. So that's like the same with exercise, right, so it's like you warm up for 10 minutes, your new homeostasis, you'll have the post-exercise oxygen consumption or whatever, and we know we can shift into 10 minute intervals and trying to get our cardio done a day. It's the same kind of thing. So if they're humming and whistling or whatever for 10 minutes, they'll all be in that state. If they're smiling for 10 minutes prior, they'll be in that mental state.

Speaker 1: 33:02

If a baseball player is walking up to, he's in the on-deck circle waiting to hit and he's feeling the tension because he knows it's going to be a big situation. How do you so? You're saying hum.

Speaker 3: 33:18

Whistle, laugh, smile.

Speaker 1: 33:20

Belly breathing, something like that. Belly breathing is interesting because sometimes you could like hum, whistle, laugh, smile, belly, belly breathing.

Speaker 3: 33:22

Yeah, and the belly breathing is interesting because sometimes you could like hyperventilate, so it's not great in the moment. It would be better to do like a little bit and, yes, taking deep breaths and getting oxygen in there. But sometimes it can make someone hyperventilate or could potentially kind of make it worse in the moment or could potentially kind of make it worse than the moment. But another thing that they can potentially do is essentially giving themselves compliments or having that mantra out there I got this, I got this, I got this kind of thing. But also they can access their body. So just bringing that awareness or the mindfulness a lot of people call it that of like, okay, I'm, you know, feeling this anxiety in my body or feeling this, uh, undischarged energy. I feel it in my heart. Um, what does it mean? I'm worried about that. I'm going to fail. Uh, so just processing through the emotion, through the sensation in the moment and then going into the humming whistling, but accessing where you're feeling it in the body discharges it.

Speaker 3: 34:18

I mean, it's that, uh easy, it really is, but yeah, so going through it and kind of doing a body scan, as we'd say like, oh, I'm feeling tension in my shins, okay, what's that coming up for me with that? It's like, oh yeah, well, I'm going to have to run, I don't want to get out, I want to run fast, you know, to the base, that kind of stuff, yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:44

How can coaches you know, I've heard you talk about vagal tone to improve physical performance? What?

Speaker 3: 34:48

is this kind of the same thing as the humming and the yes, so the biggest nerve, the stronger it is and the more connection it's, more parasympathetic nervous system state, so that calming, rest and recovery I like ask questions.

Speaker 1: 35:02

the same question to every guest, regardless of who the guest is. And I got to ask you this question Do you hate losing? Let's take it back to when you were an athlete. Do you hate losing or love winning?

Speaker 3: 35:20

I would say love winning. I would say love winning.

Speaker 1: 35:25

How does that affect the process of performance? And you know you're saying you love winning. Why do you say that?

Speaker 3: 35:37

So there's this aspect of having fear of faith and so athletes get hung up on well, I don't want to have my eyes set on a third, you know, podium finish, because if I want that podium finish and I'm really set on getting it, it's going to make me so disappointed if I don't get that. So that's already manifesting, creating your reality of not making it on the podium. So it's more more that positive expectation. So you're asking me if hate losing or love winning, so I want athletes to sit in this faith kind of component of you're going to be just as disappointed if you don't get on the podium, whether you want to get on the podium or are just aiming for like fourth, fifth place, right, so you're going to be just as disappointed.

Speaker 3: 36:21

So why not go for the manifestation, the creation of getting on that podium? So it's more this positive mindset around the end result. So the human condition have fear, have faith. Fear, of course, pops us into sympathetic nervous system state where we're the beta wave, the fight, fight, freezey and muscle gardening, all that kind of stuff. So you might as well have that faith in doing well, yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:50

That makes sense because I, for the longest time, as far back as I can remember, I always viewed it as I hate losing. I can't stand that feeling of losing. I can't stand that feeling of losing, and the more, I guess recently of all, have been saying love winning, and it's that side of which, basically, you're explaining.

Speaker 3: 37:13

Yeah, and it's sitting in that energy Because, again, the second that we shift our energy it's going to shift us from beta wave, so that positive that you know oftentimes with the athletes I'll have them kind of pump themselves up with. I want you to go through a reel of all the amazing plays that you've made and the times that you've won and just feel that powerful positive feeling in your body. And then of course, they can do like the champion stance, cause we know, naturally, that this um increases the positive endorphins in our body. So it's like having them stand over there with a champion sets or on the hips or whatever, and then going through that reel of all the amazing plays they've made, all the great at bats, the home runs, and just going through that and pumping that up in the body while smiling or humming, and that is going to get them really ready and not necessarily in that sympathetic nervous system state. So, having that faith that we're going to do amazing, we're going to go out there and kill it.

Speaker 1: 38:05

So, yeah, what suggestions would you give the old school style of coach that you know they're very successful, but they, they are more of a they, they, they really get after you, I guess I know the hard knock side, Really, that if you're going to give a criticism you got to back it up with two compliments.

Speaker 3: 38:29

We know that that's that sandwich kind of thing and we know that that two positives will counter that negative. And really, I mean, there's been science experiments done where they've had a plant that is getting positive reinforcement played on a speaker. Then you have a plant that gets negative reinforcement played on a speaker. This plant will die and this one thrives. So really think about that. With tissue and energy even around us, with our atoms and what we're expressing on our quantified field and all these things, it's like we retract and pull in with the negativity. So you're really not going to get anywhere with pushing your athletes with the negativity criticism. And but yeah, one correction, Okay, when you're up there to bat, I want you to choke up on the you know bat. But you did this, this, this great, that's all.

Speaker 1: 39:19

Okay, If a player, parent or coach wants to learn more about what you have to offer, how can they do that? And how can the listeners, if they want to just kind of start to follow you on social media, how can they do that also?

Speaker 3: 39:35

Every social media channel out there. It's at Sports Psych Page. So I'm building my YouTube and getting my group going because wanting to really help others outside of just working one-on-one. And then you can go to my website and it's robertsneurotrainingcom and I offer a free 30 minute consultation because I like to kind of know what's going on. You know, we can just do a 30 minute consultation and I can give you some tips and if you're not ready to take the plunge and doing the work, but that's just how you can find me and reach out. And you know, like I said, I'll be creating my community here by the end of the month and have those modules up so that people can start going through the process and doing it with their athletes.

Speaker 1: 40:17

Great Well. Thanks again to Dr Paige Roberts for joining us here on the Athlete One podcast. Thanks again.

Speaker 3: 40:24

Yeah, it was a pleasure, Happy I could help athletes.

Speaker 2: 40:31

You've been listening to the Athlete One podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, to get new fresh weekly episodes. To get new fresh weekly episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram X and Facebook or visit our website at wwwathlete1.net.

Speaker 1: 40:55

That's athlete the number one dot net. Today's episode of the Athlete One Podcast was powered by the netting professionals improving programs one facility at a time. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. Or online at wwwnettingproscom. And, as always, thanks for listening.