Speaker: What are some ways that you can increase your emotional temperature?
Speaker1: Jump around a little bit, a light run, maybe stretch a little bit before you go.
Speaker2: Thinking about what I'm going to do.
Speaker3: In the ride I usually listen to music like really upbeat, or I just think of past meets where I have done really good, and the dives that I did and score that I got and that makes me feel really good. So I am ready.
Speaker4: Well, I just keep on running as much as my legs can do, and I usually pull through.
Speaker5: Some other ways I can increase my emotional temperature is to listen to live music or stretch, cheer it with my team warm up, stuff like that.
Speaker: So it's clear that at time you need to increase your emotional temperature to get more up for the contest and at other times you need to decrease it, cool off a little bit, so you're not nervous or worried. There are some really good ways and skills that you can learn to help you do this.
One of those is centered-breathing and overall body relaxation. You center-breath by inhaling very slow through your nose and then you think of a point right behind your bellybutton and then exhale through your mouth, all very slowly. The key is to think of the center of your body on the inhale and do it slowly. On the exhale, think relaxed and easy.
Now you can use center-breathing before a contest, during it, for example, if you would go out of bounds and they stop action or even while you're performing, for example, if you're a runner you can center-breath as you run. However, to be effective, center-breathing must be practiced. So try to do it five or six times a day. Try it at school, during practice, in the drive to practice. You want to make it a habit that you hardly need to think about.
Another way we can deal with our stress is bag it or sometimes it's called parking it. Now it's normal to experience stress, every athlete does, before a big meet in a critical situation. So the key is not to panic when you become stressed. Sometimes you just need to recognize that you are stressed and bag those stress thoughts and replace them with more productive or positive thoughts.
So like we talked about with thought stopping earlier, sometimes when you have these thoughts, people will say don't think them. That can be pretty hard to do. However, some athletes have found it effective to mentally bag or park those thoughts somewhere.
So when you get stress, mentally park those thoughts in a stress bag in your head and think about one or two more positive things, like focusing on coming over the ball. In big time competitions sometimes we think we are the only one in the world who gets nervous. The truth of the matter is that most athletes experience some type of nervousness before competitions. However, top competitors don't panic when they get nervous. Instead, they remind themselves that it's normal to be nervous and view it as a natural part of getting ready.
So the next time you get nervous, remind yourself that it's not whether you get butterflies in your stomach that's important. What's important is that the butterflies are flying in the right formation. So if you get Nervous, remind yourself that it's normal and focus on using the mental skills learned here to achieve your best emotional temperature for peak performance.
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