Weekly Blog #1

This week has been amazing, I have been able to learn so much in what feels like such a short time. From my first meeting with Dr. Shinitzky, talking about the opportunities in store for me, to now. This first week has expanded my base knowledge and given me real life experience with is the best teacher.

Working with Dr. Shinitzky I have been able to, learn the 3 step Olympic Calm, respectfully disrespectfully interrupt in conversation, learn the importance of interpersonal relationships, the 5 phases of change, and elite athlete attributes.  The 3 step Olympic calm helps athlete an to find peace and calm when competing or just feeling the stress. The first step is Diaphragmatic Breathing, The second part is Muscle relaxation, this is done with the Diaphragmatic breathing, and 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. We also looked at interpersonal dynamics and how important it is to show appreciation and acknowledge when someone is doing something right. Whether it be a  coach or someone else in your life, it important to positively reinforce what they are doing to show that you see the change and appreciate it.

I then dived into the The five stages of change: 1.)Precontemplation is the stage in which there is an unwillingness to change a problem behavior or there is a lack of recognition of the problem. 2.) Contemplation, involves the stage in which there is a consideration of change with a decision-making evaluation of the pros and cons of both the problem behavior and the change. 3.) Preparation, represents the commitment to change in the near future, usually 1-month. 4.) Action, this is when the change or modification happens. 5.) Maintenance this is when patients modify their lifestyles to avoid relapse. These 5 stages are vital to understand a person's willingness to change and fix there life.

The last thing I went over with Dr. Shinitzky with week was the 25 traits elite athletes have. when we look at elite athletes we see that they possess these superhuman abilities and traits. We choose to talk about the high pain threshold, teamwork, adaptability, leadership, etc. We also touched on the role of parents, parents have the power to make or break the athlete.

As I stated in my blog post I was also given the opportunity to shadow Lynne Couchara, a Sports Hypnosis. We first outlined the work she does and how it translates to the sports world. The idea is to relax your body and subconsciously fix the problem. In this state the subconouce  part of you is taking in information and interpreting quite literally. Lynne was a Yoga and Meditation instructor for 15 years prior to her job now, so she knows and understands what it takes to relax someone and get them in the right state of mind. Her idea is to allow athletes a place relax and use positive self talk methods to help athlete push past their fear or mental block. Thit has been nothing short of amazing and informative, I look forward to the coming week and the opportunity to learn more!