When athletes feel pressure, they naturally tend to panic, said Conor Hogan, author of The Gym Upstairs: The Neuroscience of Future Champions. If they understand some of the neuroscience of sports, they can calm themselves with techniques like visualization and meditation, he said. Listen to Learn More: Related Articles on … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Do Your Young Athletes Focus Too Much on Mistakes? Do they criticize their performance instead of focusing on learning from their mistakes? And do they ignore what they did well? If so, your sports kids are likely perfectionists. They tend to be hard on themselves after they compete, which undermines … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Girls in sports drop out at higher rates than boys, and a number of challenges lead to that problem, says Kathryn Ackerman, a physician and director of the Female Athlete Program in the sports medicine division of Boston Children’s Hospital. She’s also an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Mental Training for Youths We’ve received many questions from sports parents and coaches about how to introduce mental training to athletes… In this new video, Dr. Cohn helps parents and coaches introduce and explain mental training to young athletes. Unfortunately, we know that athletes resist mental training for the wrong … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Emotional Outbursts Lead to a Loss of Focus? You can’t take emotions out of the game. By nature, we are emotional beings. However, when young athletes don’t reel in their emotions, they will intensify, and their performance will decline rapidly. For example, Mary S. is a high school basketball player. … Read Sport Psychology Tip
Hypnotherapy Can Relieve Stress Lark Ericson, a certified hypnotherapist and life coach, works with a number of sports kids, and begins by explaining to them how hypnotherapy can help, she said during an interview with our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast. For kids who might be resistant to the idea, she … Read Sport Psychology Tip