Mental Health and Sport
Our approach to mental health in this program will be referred to as Mental Fitness.
All athletes know that physical fitness in their sport requires daily work – you can’t get very fit and then stop training and assume you’ll remain very fit.
Mental fitness is the same way -
it requires daily habits and work.
The Warrior Mindset has a lot in common with both ancient and modern day teachings about mental fitness. Let’s take a look …
Cognitive/Behavioral Therapy (CBT): I was very fortunate to have known Albert Ellis the founder of CBT. CBT has a very basic foundation that is: Events/People don’t directly cause our emotions, rather it is how we think about the event that has the greatest influence on our emotions.
The CBT equation: A + B = C. A is the Activating Event, B is our belief about A, and C is our emotional/behavioral consequence.
The Warrior Mindset teaches us that our thoughts are very powerful. We can rarely control the events but we can control how we respond. Learn to Respond Not React!
Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT): is one of the most evidence-based therapeutic interventions known. The emphasis on Mindfulness is a key component in DBT as it enables us to notice which mindset we are in, and to better access the Warrior Wise Mind.
DBT teaches the three minds: Emotion Mind, Reasonable Mind, and Wise Mind. When we practice mindfulness, we recognize the impact of these three mindsets. The emotion mind is often our default because our primal instincts that keep us alive reside here, it's also where much of our angst comes from. The Warrior Mindset is not only emotional, it is Wise and honors both emotion and reason.
On our whiteboard we see the connection with DBT when we practice Genchi Genbutsu – To Observe and when we practice Mushin – Mindfulness
Stoicism:
This ancient Greek philosophy was the foundation of CBT/DBT. Albert Ellis often quoted Epictetus, “Men are not disturbed by things, but by the notions they form concerning things.” Stoic philosophy emphasizes how we respond to events as the primary cause of our emotions.
Aristotle’s concept of Eudaimonia is the essence of our calendar. Eudaimonia is deeper than what we think of as joy or happiness, it is spiritual flourishing. It is achieved by living a moral and virtuous life. Essentially, it is the connection of our values with our actions. That is what we are doing as we use the whiteboard - it is a daily practice tool not a decorative poster.
High Performance Psychology:
The common formula for sports psychology is: E x (R x 3) = O. E is the Event, R is the Response cubed giving it much more influence on the O, the outcome. As you can see, this is very similar to CBT.
Topics we will cover in high performance psychology fit perfectly with our Warrior Mindset’s concepts of Mushin (mindful), Ichi Go Ichi E (Presence in the Moment), Nana Korobi Ya Oki (Grit and Resilience), and Heiho-Waza (Value-Driven Actions).