Quiz 2

Behavioral Strategies Continued

- Aesthetics: Lighting & environment, clutter vs. organization - Physical Location: The further a place is, the less likely someone is to do it. Commuting is not ideal. Lower the barrier of entry. - Data collection: Wearing an Apple watch alone will increase activity -> be aware of that -> incorporate goals. Same with PA monitor. - Scheduling: Will increase likelihood of follow through - Social engineering: What people foster and encourage your HBC and who does not? - Give options

Sport Commitment Model

- Applicable to all people (the more a person invests in a goal, the more commitment - Commitment maximum: More resources spent on a goal, the more likely to follow through - Increased awareness of valuable opportunities

Arousal Regulation: Stressor Typology

- Arousal (heightened activation of body and mind) vs anxiety (Negative interpretation of arousal) - Athletes vs non athletes - Coping vs preventing The more someone is in Eustress (positive stress), the volume and severity of anxious experiences decreases.

"Flow" Essential Components

- Balance between perceived skill and the challenge - Clear goals - Merging of actions and awareness - Total concentration - Performance is irrelevant - Process focused (not looking foe external reward) - Transformation of time (feels faster or slower) - Effortless movement (regulation of tension)

Motivational Interviewing (MI)

- Client centered method to increase motivation to change. - Started in addiction counseling. - Stay away from FIXING. Let them come up with it. Simply guide them to the answer. Connect the dots.

Reasons why PST neglected

- Coaches and athletes may have a lack of knowledge because scientific literature hasn't been translated to understandable language - May be a lack of buy in - Lack of prioritization by athletes - Misunderstanding that people are born with mental toughness

Effects of Imagery

- Concentration: Better able to concentrate, makes people more engaged. - Motivation: What would it look like if you were 100% engaged? - Decreases monotony - Increases confidence: Particularly effective in the workplace. Have them imagine what success looks like. - Arousal regulation: More somatic/body control

Box Breathing Modifications

- Duration - Visual - Mantra - Tactical breathing

Identifying negative thinking

- Filtering: Magnifying the negatives, ignoring the positives - Personalizing: When a bad event occurs, you blame yourself unfairly. - Catastrophizing: Automatically expect the worse case scenario - Black & white: Something is either good or bad.

Box Breathing Recommendations

- Have to breathe through nostrils. - Optimal w/ neutral spine b/c stomach and lungs are being filled - If needed, T-spine extension over a roller helps - Some therapists do not recommend it for all clients. It can lead to hyperventilation. *Shown to be effective in clinical populations*

Implementation of a Psychological Skills Training Program

1. Discuss scope of practice (refer out of needed) 2. Collect data (Quantitative and qualitative) 3. Present results (then ask for feedback) 4. Determine which skills to include (It's a partnership, start small) 5. Design a schedule: - Needs to be action oriented. - Can it be done today or tomorrow? - Short frequent meetings are better than long ones - Design one specific to athletes, w/ training in the offseason. Practice outside of practice. 6. Evaluate: - Is the coach bought in?

Most Effective Types of Self Talk

Self distancing: Any time the word "I" comes up, you replace it with your name. - Decreases anxiety and obsessive thoughts. The more you practice, the more likely you seek challenges. Broaden & Build: Practice training parasympathetic so anxiety has less influence. - Increases capacity to consider additional opportunities.

Health benefits of positive thinking

- Increased life span. - Decreased anxiety. - Improved immune function. - Improved cardiovascular function and lower risk for cardiovascular disease.

Psychoneuromuscular Theory

- Learning: Imagery helps learning - Muscle activation: Imagining feeling a movement increases synchronization of motor units, increasing success. Less intense. - Motor Imagery: Bioprosthetics. Imaging performing the movement without tensing the muscles.

Mental Toughness

- No consistent definition - Leads to increased intrinsic motivation and performance - Athletes tend to have more grit/perseverance. - Can become negative when people keep pushing when they should rest. May lead to overtraining. - Athletes are less likely to seek mental help.

Controllability of Imagery

- Pre Imagery: Put yourself in a relaxed state of mind to have less competing thoughts. - For sport skill: Imagine w/ mistakes, then imagine w/ execution. - Emotional control: Imagine yourself agitated, then use stress reducing techniques to be more calm. - Pre Imagery: Practice imagery in various settings - Movement Speed: Imagine moving at game time or workout speed.

Characteristics of Successful Physical Activity Interventions

- Primary goal is health behavior change and adherence - Multiple treatments /conversations with practitioner - Cognitive & behavior strategies - Components that can be practiced individually (autonomy) - Observable and measurable outcomes - Client input in treatment plan - Rapport building

SMARTER Goal Setting Continued

- Realistic, but still challenging - Time based: Have a due date - Evaluate: Make expectations clear to the client (but ensure its a partnership and both agree) - Revise: Give corrections, feedback, and shaping.

Behavioral Strategies

- Seek Humor: Find humor in setbacks - Increase family and surroundings: Go once to familiarize with the setting. Take a friend. - Mental health counseling: Might need to refer out. Rapport allows them to trust you. - Sourcing: Find scientific info and make it easy to understand. - Social support: Who has your back in the journey? - Engineering your environment: Be in situations that force yourself to reach your goals.

Characteristics of MI

- Self-determined (autonomy): Practice is the amplifier for the client. - Collaboration - Unconditional positive regard - Resolving ambivalence to change (Decisional Balance worksheet)

SMARTER Goal Setting

- Short and long term goals: Less than a month so its manageable. Relate the short and long term. Short should be foundational. - Specific action plan: Be specific, have options for setbacks. Ironic Process Theory - Measurable: Quantitative and qualitative data - Action-oriented: Goal can be implemented today (at least 1). Sell it to a client by showing it to them today.

Factors that Influence Imagery Effectiveness

- Skill level of the performer (More skilled the performer, the more effective imagery is, i.e. athletes and/or experienced better than non athletic or novice) - Just like physical practice, the more you do the better it is for you

Being anxious or angry

- Takes energy away from pre-frontal cortex - Makes it difficult to process new information - Tougher to let go of negative thoughts (ruminations) - Decreased coordination and speed of thought

Decisional Balance Worksheet

- To resolve ambivalence to change - Helps predict potential problems (obstacles) - Habitual comfort is hard to change - Bring awareness to how habits will change and what the costs will be

Negativity Bias

- We are hard wired to perceive threats quickly (fight or flight). - Can begin in infancy. - Anxious caregivers + genetics make it worse. - People we follow can make it worse. They may use scare tactics. - Who are we allowing to influence our psyche?

Focusing on Happiness

- When people are happy coupled w/ physiology, cortisol is lower, serotonin is higher. - You form new synapses in your frontal cortex. - It is easier to introspect. - Better control of your emotions.

Phases of PST Programs

1. Education: Using scientific data and explaining how the data will improve performance. 2. Acquisition: Individualize the plan to meet their needs. Conscious skills training. 3. Practice: Automation occurs. Arousal regulation for cognitive and somatic. 4. Integration: Athlete starts to integrate skills during competition. 5. Generalization (as needed): If the athlete wants to apply this to other areas of life

Box Breathing: Specific Protocol

1. Inhale slowly counting 1-2-3-4. (visualize breath moving up one side of the square - make your image vivid) 2. Close the valve at the back of your throat and hold your breath for 4. (visualize moving across top of square) - Remember to keep upright posture when breath hold to avoid diaphragm compression 3. Exhale for 4 (visualize moving down box) 4. Hold breath for 4 (visualize moving across bottom of box) 5. Repeat

Diaphragmatic Breathing

1. Lie on your back (to see stomach rising) with your knees bent (in case they don't have postural strength) and a pillow under your head. 2. Place a pillow under your knees to support your legs. 3. Put one hand on your upper chest and the other below your rib cage so you can feel the movement of your diaphragm. 4. Inhale slowly through your nose, feeling your stomach expand to press into your hand. 5. Keep the hand on your chest as still as possible. 6. Engage your stomach muscles and draw them toward your spine as you exhale using pursed lips (blowing out of a straw) - keep the hand on your upper chest as still as possible.

Response Propositions

After practicing observing, we need to feel it from imagery. - Kinesthetic Imagery: Experience (done it before)

Imagery and Physical Activity

Better together than doing either alone

Arousal Regulation: Cognitive vs Somatic Anxiety

Cognitive: When could getting fired up help you? Somatic and symptoms: Physical manifestation of cognitive anxiety. - Shortness of breath - Dizziness - Sweating - Rapid HR - Chest pain - GI distress - Decreased saliva - Increased muscle tension - Decreased exercise and sport performance *(regulating arousal helps with fine motor control)*

Ironic Process Theory

Deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts make them more likely to surface. - Use "addition" language rather than subtraction language.

MI Continued: Action Planning

Explore misalignments: The most important reasons I want to change are _________ Specific, realistic goals: - I will know that my PA change plan is working if ____________ - Some things that could interfere with my plan are ___________ - What I will do if the plan isn't working or if circumstances have made the plan unrealistic: ____________

Positive and Negative Self Talk

First make positive and negative interpretations

"Flow"

General feeling that everything is going well. Positive effect. - "I" am feeling like everything is going well. - Complete immersion. - On autopilot.

Stimulus Propositions

Have a person imagine a scene with a lot of detail, but don't react. Gets people in the present.

Importance and Confidence Rulers

How important is this change to you (0-10)? How confident are you about this change (0-10)? 1. Why are you a ____ and not a slightly higher or lower number? 2. What would it take for you to be a slightly higher number?

Triple Code Model

I - Image S - Somatic: Be observant of bodily response M - Meaning: Meaning of the image. Different images mean different things to different people. Color Association: Colors are powerful when it comes to mood.

Imagery and Brain Activity

Imagery affects the prefrontal cortex. - In a study, breathing + imagery group had more prefrontal cortex activity than breathing group. - Shows that imagery helps critical thinking

Bioinformational Theory

Images consist of stimulus and response propositions. Begin w/stimulus then response.

Sensory Involvement in Imagery

Involves the most senses possible

Diaphragmatic Breathing Progressions

Lying --> Sitting --> ADLs (Activities of daily living) --> Working out

Educational vs Clinical Sport Psychology

Primarily dealing with improving athletic performance. Constructs: - Imagery - Goal setting - Arousal regulation

Box Breathing

Somatic technique to lower somatic and cognitive tension. Controls anxiety. - Activates Vagal Nerve, activating the parasympathetic response

Genetic influence on cognition

Some people are wired to see the negative events more vividly. More likely to think a crowd is thinking negatively of them.

Psychological Skills Training (PST)

Systematic (having a plan) and consistent (used again and again) practice of mental skills for the purpose of enhancing performance, increasing enjoyment, or achieving greater sport and *physical activity self-satisfaction*. - Primary Goal: Self-determination, increased autonomy - Characteristics: Positive self-talk - Mental Toughness

Conscious Skills Training

Think about skills so they eventually become automated.

Learning to Control Imagery

Vivid: Vivid images are more effective. Have them imagine a calm/comfortable place. Notice emotions

Arousal Regulation: Athletes vs Non Athletes

Who does it most? 1. Pro athletes 2. College athletes 3. Recreational athletes *Athletes of all levels use more somatic anxiety reduction for competition and cognitive techniques for daily life*