Blog #6

Today I worked on a research paper and met with Dr. Shinitzky to go over a slide show that he put together. With the research paper, I was looking how to strongly succeed in the world of Sport Psychology, Sports Hypnosis, and Mental training from a business perspective. As we all know having a successful business depends on the clients (athletes) and regular patients, but what happens when you can't be found? I was looking gain feedback from athletes and online sources. With this feedback, I will be able to gain better knowledge of what it takes to have a successful, strong, and lasting business in the world of mental conditioning.

I also looked at the slide show that I mentioned in the introduction paragraph. The life after sport presentation was part of media Psychology. The slide show that Dr. Shinitzky broke down, showed ideas and outlined what’s happens to athletes after their competitive sport days are over. The first topic was looking at morals and behavior, we see that professional athletes are Immature, dependent, and entitled. They throw morals out of the widow because” rules don’t apply to them” they have been treated special, have been put on a pedestal, and they feel above others. Some key themes that we touched on we're Depression ( drugs and alcohol), Loss of identity, Fear, Brain damage, and Financial struggle. With these topics often times athletes struggle to find an identity and don’t know who they are outside of their sports. Depression is a huge problems amongst athletes, they struggle with drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and in may causes they struggle with domestic violence. These negatives are what we see on tv and in the media, yet an athlete struggles at much deeper levels that most people couldn’t understand.

The slide show also talked about helping athletes get back into the workforce. Whether you have a short career or a long career, it all ends at some point. Its imperative that you can integrate into the workplace because you are still young and need to sustain your wealth and gain more skills. Some skills we touched on were communication (verbal and written), analytical skills, flexibility, strong work ethic, and personality characteristics. Now most elite athletes have these skills because you need them to be apart of a team. With this new team jobs want to see that you are willing to fill a role and work your butt off to succeed in this new field. This slideshow was full of information that I didn’t touch on, but was very useful to success off the field and where in matters most, in life.

The last part of the day was a conference call with Dr. Shinitzky we again focused the 3 step Olympic Calm. These 3 steps help athlete to find peace and calm when competing or just feeling the stress. The first step is Diaphragmatic Breathing, this helps you to calm your body, as you breath in and out you are slowing the heart rate and getting the body in a rest state. The second part is Muscle relaxation, this is done with the Diaphragmatic breathing. You voluntarily contract and relax the muscles to gain control of your body and to also control how you respond to stress. The last step is Visualization, first you go to you happy place, a place where you are safe, alone, and protected. You then move into you playing a sport and then watching yourself as a spectator. Once you have competed this you should feel more relaxed. Biggest take away, you are master of your own body, if you practice this skill you will have control over your body and how you react to stress!

10 hrs