North Star Mental Fitness Blog

Do Professional Athletes Know How to Stop Choking?

In professional sports, there is tremendous pressure to achieve.  Athletes want to be "Mr. Clutch"!  Athletes went to lead their team to victory.  Athletes want to continually elevate their performances to higher levels.  Athletes want to win, when victory or defeat is determined by what they do!

What is choking?  Choking is the failure to cope successfully with the pressures associated with professional sports, because of anxiety and panic.  Failure to "always" cope effectively with pressure in sports should be expected.  All professional athletes sometimes in their career will fail to achieve at the critical moment.  The critical moment is when what they do will determine the joy of victory or the agony of defeat.  Failure to successfully achieve is not choking.

Professional athletes need to set realistic expectations for themselves.  If a person wants to be a professional athlete, then they need to expect and accept that they sometimes will fail.  After all isn't winning and losing the nature of the game.  Isn't playing well and playing poorly to be expected?

Choking is when professional performance deteriorates, because of anxiety, fear and panic.  Choking is associated with prolonged failure to achieve at a level commensurate with one's ability, because of anxiety, fear and panic.  When focused attempts to achieve result in continuing poor performance or deteriorating performance, choking is present.  Anxiety, fear and panic can completely destroy confidence and prevent successful achievement.  When this occurs, professional athletes are in a state of choking.

There is a lot that can be done to control and manage choking.  Some athletes seek psychiatric treatment and counseling for their anxiety. I recommend mental fitness training for successfully coping with choking.  Mental fitness training is just as important as physical training for successful performance and managing of the pressures associated with professional sports.

Often times, professional athletes are given wonderful advice such as in Patrick Cohn's article,How to Avoid Choking in Baseball.  Although professional advice may be correct and valid, it is only effective when an athlete's default mindset for coping with choking is changed.  The mind's default position for coping with choking can only be changed through hard work or mental fitness or mental toughness training.

Athletes need to know: 

• Advice from their friends, fellow players and coaches usually is ineffective in reducing anxiety induced choking and sometimes can increase choking!
• Attempts to consciously stop choking can actually increase choking!
• It is important to change one's mindset in order to effectively manage choking!
• Mental fitness and mental toughness are the result of one's thinking and not automatically associated with professional skills.
• Mental fitness and mental toughness training can make an athlete stronger than the anxiety associated with choking!

If you or someone you know is struggling with anxiety associated with their performance, suggest to them that they get mental fitness training or contact me for further information.

Remember, We Live with the Performances Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Get Mentally Fit!

Take Care of You.  Take Control of Your Life.  Take Care of Your Mind.

Practice Mental Fitness.

Life is full of change, risks and challenges.  Mental fitness training will help  you find the strength and confidence to take care of yourself, even during turbulent times.  You can be stronger than your problems.  You can find solutions for any and all of your problems with the North Star Mental Fitness Program.

Are you mentally fit enough to deal with life’s ups and downs?"

At the North Star Mental Fitness Blog we believe everyone can improve their mental fitness.  We can all improve our mental fitness by concentrating and repeating mental exercises. 

If Your Life Is Important to You,

The Time Has Come for You to Add Mental Fitness to Your Life!

Just ask us how!

By practicing mental fitness, you will make a commitment to take care of yourself and you will have the strength to achieve your dreams and goals!

 

Remember, You Live within the Mind, Body and Environment Created by Your Choices!

 

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

 

Brain Fitness Programs

As a clinical psychologist, I am frequently asked to evaluate people for memory loss and other areas of cognitive decline.  After evaluating people, some are prescribed medications by their physicians.

Frequently, I encourage people to use brain fitness programs.  There are brain fitness programs to improve memory, eye-hand coordination, visual-spatial problem-solving, attention and focus, and processing numbers.  I discovered a very practical website, Play with Your Mind.  This website offers a lot of different brain fitness programs.  I highly encourage you to visit this website and utilize their programs.

Unfortunately, many people with memory losses and declining ability to function, are unaware of resources for improving their functioning for delaying the process of cognitive decline.

I really want you to keep this post for a resource.  There was a post at Play with Your Mind entitled Brain Fitness Programs and Websites.  You'll have to look no further for brain fitness training and opportunities.  This will be a wonderful resource for you.

Brain fitness programs are relatively new, but extremely important for people who want to be fully functioning for as long as possible.  These programs will stimulate and challenge our senses and cognitive abilities.

These programs are different than the  North Star Mental Fitness Program, which provides exercises to improve decision-making, taking care of oneself and making one stronger than one's problems.

The  North Star Mental Fitness Program is a practical program for making life's decisions, while most brain fitness programs are developed to improve various sensory and cognitive functions.  Both mental fitness and brain fitness programs are important and necessary, although different in their objectives.

You can use the North Star Mental Fitness Program's strategies for improving your life focus and for making life decisions easier and more satisfying.  You can use the brain fitness programs for sharpening your senses and thinking abilities.  We need both.

Remember, We Live within the Minds and Environment Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Use CPR To Kill Your Ant's (Automatic Negative Thoughts)

Dr. Daniel Amen believes you could have an ant infestation in your brain!  It sure sounds gross, doesn't it?  Before you call an ant exterminator, let me explain what Dr. Amen means.

Life Dysfunctions

Life Dysfunctions!  We all have them.  Vern from Aim for Awesome asked the important question.  It's a question many people avoid asking.  It can be a very painful question.

The question is: What Are Your Life Dysfunctions?

She Stopped Crying

For years, she wanted to stop crying.  It was so embarrassing for her.  No matter what she tried, she couldn't stop crying. 

Mental Strategies for Losing Weight

Do you believe that mental strategies are necessary for losing weight?

Paige Waehner from Exercise Blog talked about The Truth about Weight Loss-Mental Strategies for Losing Weight.

Paige had a intriguing insight into the mind's role in creating obstacles for losing weight.  Paige wrote

"This week, I'm talking about the mental side of losing weight and discussing some of the obstacles the mind creates, such as failure, self-doubt and dishonesty. Learning how the mind can derail you may be enough to overcome those obstacles the next time around."

Yes.  We do need mental strategies to overcome the mind's creating obstacles for losing and maintaining weight. 

What are your mental strategies for losing and maintaining weight loss? 

One of Paige's readers wrote "You are right. Weight loss and fitness is about 10% understanding the importance of exercise and eating fewer calories than you burn, and 90% mental. I’ve lost 120 pounds in the past 26 months."

Another reader wrote "I agree totally with TM. Most work to do with weight loss starts in the brain. It is a constant struggle, every second, minute, hour, day, week. I have lost almost 50 pounds in the last 10 months and it is very hard. Everything I take a bite out of makes me think!!!!"

Have you ever considered adding a mental fitness program to your weight loss program?  If you really want to be successful in losing and maintaining weight loss, I recommend the North Star Mental Fitness Program.  This program can be added to any weight loss program in order to not only manage the mind's attempt to derail you from becoming successful, but also for providing new strategies for losing weight and maintaining your weight loss.

With the right mental fitness strategies, weight loss does not have to be a constant struggle!

With the right mental fitness strategies, weight loss can be maintained! 

Remember, You Live within the Body Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

INATTENTIONAL BLINDNESS

What is in attentional blindness?  Wikipedia put it this way

"Inattentional blindness, also known as perceptual blindness, is the phenomenon of not being able to see things that are actually there.

“ What Is the Bridge Over Troubled Economical Times?

Remember Simon and Garfunkel's famous song Bridge over Troubled Waters!

Most of us are now looking for a bridge over our bad economic times.  We look outside of ourselves for the magical bridge or the guru to lead us to the promised land.  Sometimes we look in the wrong places.  Today , let us look inside of ourselves to find the bridge over depressing economic times and are pressing mood resulting from the economy.

 Bad economical times has spread throughout our country and the world.  Bad economical times will be shared by all of us, unfortunately.

The question is:  How will the bad economical times effect you? 

For many people who do not practice the power of thinking and good mental fitness, the depressing economy will depress their psyche and mood.  There is no doubt that the economy is depressing.  Therefore, shouldn't they be depressed?

Even though the economy is depressing, we do not have to be depressed.  We do not need to allow external circumstances and problems depress us!

When people become depressed over depressing occurrences in their life like the depressing economy, unconsciously they are using "because of" thinking.  "Because of thinking" is logical and shows no regard for our mental state.  "Because of thinking" is automatic.  Obviously for many people, they will be depressed because of the depressing economy.  They may never even question why they have to be depressed, when the economy falls apart.

When our economic times are bad, the power of good mental fitness becomes strikingly clear.  A person with good mental fitness realizes they have freedom of choice even in bad circumstances.  "In spite of" thinking thinking can replace "because of" thinking.

When we think "in spite of" the bad economy, we can take control our lives, our mood and even our economics.  For example, we can think "in spite of" the bad economy, we are happy, successful, wealthy, etc. 

"In spite of" the bad economy, we can focus on the what we are grateful for rather than what we have lost. 

"In spite of" the bad economy, we can focus on finding opportunities rather than dwelling on the problems in economic areas of our lives.

"In spite of" thinking can turn our problems into successes and can become the bridge over troubled waters in our lives!