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Mental Health and sports| 3.29.2023

In this episode, Kristen talks with Mayor Chris Jensen and Elizabeth White, CEO of The Well Counseling and Consulting Group, about mental health among athletes, challenges in sports and how to work through them.

You'll Learn

  • Some common challenges and stress experienced by athletes
  • How to help athletes work through shame, anxiety and fear
  • How to deal with disappointments and overcome setbacks in sports
  • How to balance the demands of sports and family life

Resources

For counseling services near Indianapolis, IN, visit www.pathwaystohealingcounseling.com.

Subscribe and Get a free 5-day journal at www.kristendboice.com/freeresources to begin closing the chapter on what doesn’t serve you and open the door to the real you.

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This information is being provided to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is being provided to you to educate you about ideas on stress management and as a self-help tool for your own use. It is not psychotherapy/counseling in any form.

Kristen

Welcome to the Cose the Chapter Podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice Pathways to Healing counselling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore. And open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe

Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I am truly grateful for you taking the time to listen to each episode. And we'd love to hear what you want more of in future episodes. And I want you to be able to get the free journal at Kristen k r i s t e n d Boice boice.com forward slash free resources. And you will also get the weekly newsletter which you'll definitely want to grab because I have announcements in there also lots of helpful information on how to deal with anxiety depression relationship challenges, PTSD, trauma, so feel free to join the list. I would love to have you a member of our community. And I'm excited about this week's episode because I have a dear friend Elizabeth White who joined us for mental health Monday. What is mental health Monday. I do that once a month with the mayor of the town I live in the city of Noblesville, Indiana, and he has been known now as the mental health mayor. We started mental health Mondays about three years ago. And Elizabeth is the team clinician for the Indianapolis Colts, the NFL team here in the city. And it was a fascinating conversation on sports and mental health and things we might not think about with professional athletes. It's very helpful information. And another way to think about mental health in sports. So if you have someone that plays sports, a kid, a teenager, someone in college or a partner, or you play sports, I highly recommend this episode and I don't play sports and I was very intrigued by everything Elizabeth says Elizabeth and I graduated from the same programme and we have kept in touch over the years. She is an excellent clinician. She owns a counselling practice in Indianapolis called the Well I definitely want to have her on the show again. But this is our conversation that we had for mental health Monday and I hope you enjoy it.

Mayor Jensen

Thank you for joining us for another March version of mental health Monday of Chris. I'm just trying to throw as many M words in there as humanly possible to make that alliteration work. But we are so honoured today. To switch things up a little bit. Bring on a new fresh face to talk about mental health and the sports arena which I love, especially with March Madness. Honestly, as a lot of sports fans probably need some mental health. There might be a lot of mental health that's needed around sports. So I'm going to introduce my good friend Kristen Boice. The owner of pathways to healing counselling here in Noblesville, who has graciously for the past three years, walked us through mental health sessions here on mental health Monday and allow Kristen to introduce

Kristen

our guest speaker Yes, mental health Monday with March Madness. And we are really hitting on all cylinders today. That's exciting. Yeah, I am so thrilled beyond to have my dear friend Elizabeth white. She is a licenced mental health counsellor, addictions counsellor school counsellor. The credentials are endless fellow EMDR trained therapists, she owns the well. She is also the team clinician for the Indianapolis Colts. And she is a wealth of information, depth of knowledge and here on a mission to make an impact in mental health and the sports arena. And she speaks and does consulting for many corporations on diversity and inclusion, among other things, including mental health strategies and wellness programmes. So Elizabeth, welcome to Mental Health Monday. Yay. Thank

Elizabeth

you for having me. I'm so excited to be with you guys. May or June so nice to meet you to eat me too. And Kristen, you know, I don't you. Oh,

Kristen

I'm so thankful you're here to talk about sports and mental health. Before we get started. We start every session with deep breathing so we do square breathing. So let's get started. We'll do two deep breaths. I recommend this anytime you're stressed during the day to reset the nervous system and calm and get more clarity in the moment. So feet on the floor. We'll start we'll do two breaths together. Kind of get comfortable in your seat. Eat or if you're standing, feel your feet on the floor, a big deep inhale through your nose, and we're going to inhale for four, hold the breath for four, and slowly exhale out your mouth for eight. So let's do it together, big, deep inhale and release.

Kristen

Let's do one more big, deep inhale, hold, and then slowly release, like your cooling soup

Kristen

just kind of resets the nervous system, I recommend doing this every hour throughout your day. So when you're really feeling that heightened level of overwhelm, and anxiety, you know what to do, it's cueing the brain, the brain goes, oh, I need to take those deep breaths to help myself recenter and calm down. I love it,

Mayor Jensen

Chris, and I'll let you fire away. And I'll be here for Comic Relief. Throughout the conversation,

Kristen

I thought we'd jump in and just talk about kind of the State of the Union with sports and mental health. What are you seeing not only with the Colts, but just in general, with an emphasis and mental and emotional wellness.

Elizabeth

You know, the thing that's been interesting for me is I started with a call. So this is going to be my ninth season coming up. So I started with them before having a clinician was a part of the CBA, which is the agreement that the players have about what types of services and what types of things are going to happen at the league level. So now it is a mandate starting I think 2020 That every team have a clinician. So the thing that I always love to share with folks regarding the Indianapolis Colts is that they were ahead of the pack, right. So they identified this need in their community before it was mandated to be a requirement that I'd be in the building. So I love the fact that we are having the conversation about the pressure and the stress that can happen for a person who's a private person with a very public life. And I think one of the things that many of us can forget about is that the average professional athlete is entering at a time that none of us wanted the whole world to see everything that we were doing. Right. So if you're 1819 2022 years old, none of us really wanted the whole world to be able to know in a split second, what was going on with us shortcomings, failures, and maybe even successes, right? So that's one of the things that I love is that I think that the conversation has gotten really, really robust, is crossing over into all different spectrums of sport. And I think it was just really time was probably pastime.

Kristen

What do you think is the biggest challenge when it comes to sports and mental health?

Elizabeth

Probably one of the biggest challenges is time, the demands of the schedule for training and preparation are significant, right? And so then on top of that you have I'm still trying to maintain your own identity just as a human being as a person. So if you are in season, let's say football, if you're in season, that is a gruelling can be a very gruelling work schedule, and you might still be a dad, right and a husband or a son who has a mom who's in a hospital or whatever. So I think one of the biggest challenges is the time to figure out how to take care of your mental health, which is why I love the fact that you started with Box breathing right there, right? Because we're always I'm always trying to figure out what can I share that can be done in one minute or two minutes or five minutes?

Mayor Jensen

Can I jump in on that? Because I think somebody actually Glenn just pointed out a good point here. You know, this conversation around that their husbands and fathers or spouses. You know, we talked about this a lot with the Public Safety programme and that we have in the city of Noblesville, we do a lot of we have a mental therapy dog, we actually have two of them now that work with our officers even helping them process through the trauma that they throw at the software because I think we forget, we forget that our police officers, our athletes, our firefighters, also our human beings, our elected officials, for that matter, are human beings that go home and change diapers and kiss spouses and put kids to bed. So I think that is a huge point that we forget, sometimes we put these people on pedestals, they are real people. And so I was gonna ask, you know, as you said, what kind of tips do you get maybe athletes on the field, maybe in the middle of a game trying to focus on their mental health and balancing all that out? Can you I know you talked about square breathing, but you can maybe share a few tips that you share to professional athletes? Sure.

Elizabeth

One of the partnerships that the NFL has is with headspace. And so I encourage all of our guys to download headspace and we will definitely work on sleeping before the game sleeping the night after the game. Many people think about the preparation for the game, but it's also life after the game, whether you're managing an injury or whether you're not happy with the outcome, right? So we'll encourage our guys to use the interventions that are on there. One of the other ones we do is a two by four. So I talked to guys early in the season about two things that things they can do in two minutes, two hours, two days or two weeks. So we're always trying to have this conversation about making mental health hygienic, doing something every single day for your mental health is just like is important as brushing your teeth every single day. We would never ever go outside. Without reading, right? So we have to have this conversation about mental health being a part of that for players, I stole this from another clinician, I wish I knew who it was, I don't remember right now, but I read this about flushing it. So I've used that with my players. But if you've gone out and a play has not gone the way you want it, then you got to flush it like the toilet. Like we're not trying to examine it. We're not trying to figure out what's going on. We're like, Okay, I'm done with that. And on to the next thing. So that mindfulness piece about staying with the next play, you know, staying present in the current play, and when that one's over, moving on to the next one is something that players will definitely talk about during again,

Kristen

how about shame in professional athletes, and just athletes in general, like I messed up the game, I lost the winning point, I didn't get the touchdown didn't make the past and whatever, what are some of the advice you give on shame, and working through that

Elizabeth

the conversation that we have about that is just that we always win and lose as a team, nothing is gonna really come. I mean, if we watch it, I say it comes down to one play, but it really isn't one play, it's really this whole entire 40 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever game you're playing in, that determines whether or not there's a win or a loss. And so I think a lot of that is really just preparing players before the game that they only have the opportunity to make the best decision at the time. And whatever happens after that, we're just gonna let it go. I don't really find that players get stuck there often because again, you don't have time. You know, if you think about a game on Sunday, we're going to come in and debrief on Monday. We're back at it by Wednesday for the next week. So one of the things that really is the most important is the ability to be resilient. And that's probably where I spend more of my conversation, which is in that ability to develop the skill to bounce back because of the fact that we don't really have enough time. If we stay lost in that bad play. On Sunday, we're going to spend time that we need to be preparing for the next game, which is only seven days old. Let's talk

Kristen

to me about addictions with athletes, we see some of the big athletes at times, you know, they have an alcohol problem and drug addiction, gambling, talk to me about what you see and how you help people work through that piece. Fortunately, I

Elizabeth

haven't really had to do a lot of work in that name. Just maybe it hasn't just been something that we've had to face significantly, I can say that the NFL does have a substance use and abuse disorder programme that I think is helpful. And you know, now it probably one of the major conversations is around waste and wine. Because cannabis is making its rounds, you know, in several states about whether or not it is something that can be used to, you know, recreationally, but I'm I'm trying to think if there's anything I really haven't had to have a lot of experience with substance use and abuse for us, which is Fingers crossed. It's been great. I'm trying to think about other players and other things that I've seen. It's just that we that the NFL does have a great programme for that.

Mayor Jensen

Could you talk a little bit about you know, Kristen mentioned shame. Do you talk a little bit about fame? I'm just kind of sticking to the you know, I think there's a lot of people who glamorise the lifestyle of a NFL player or professional athlete. I imagine there's a lot of downsides with that as well. And what are you seeing? How do you kind of approach the fame conversation with your clients?

Elizabeth

Yeah, that's the one thing I love about being in the Midwest. And one of the things I like about Indiana, I think that we really do know how to stay pretty grounded around these parts, which has been fortunate for me, if we were in LA or Las Vegas, that might be a different conversation, just because life is very different in those parts of the country, or can be very different on those parts of the country. What I like to share about there is this probably big space between what people perceive this life to be and what it really is part of that is a many people think that every single day is is just this jetting around, I'm having this personal driver and this housekeeper or whatever, but the truth is, is that we have very typical human beings who are working a very public job, we have conversations around how to manage finances, and some of those conversations aren't how to say no, and how to set healthy boundaries, right? Because people generally think that professional athletes are making a lot more money than they really are. You're gonna have your huge contracts, you know, your Tom Brady, your Aaron Rodgers, you know, you're gonna have those types of contracts, but the average player has a whole lot of people that are looking to take some money out of that check. And then there's always the the cost of living and many players are bicoastal. They might be here during certain parts of the year and other places and at the other times of the year. So that can be expensive as well. As far as managing fame. I think it's just developing your identity, making sure that you know who you are as a person, what's important to you, and then also being able to say no, when that's appropriate to but I bring up again that remember now the average person that's entering this field is probably like 22 years old. So knowing who you are at 22 still comes with its own challenges. We all know the brain is still developing until 25. Right? So your ability to count up consequences and your ability to you know, make the what we might think is the best decision is still going to be hampered because your brain is not even there yet. So I'm always working on hey, how do you get to be the man that you want to be on the field? And often, but they're still in a very, very prime stage of development.

Mayor Jensen

I think that's probably one of the things that shocked me the most this morning is thinking about that, that you know, I don't think we realised not only are they human beings that are they're coming into this and a very silver emotionally maturing stage of life and trying to walk through that it's that would be incredible. Glenn had a question that was really great. What are the greatest mental blocks you find with your athletes? Yeah,

Elizabeth

it's probably performance. Just Am I good enough? I think that's one of the things that people don't know is that every single week, there really is a competition for your job. That's really the truth. You can be benched at any point. There's a reason why there's a depth chart, right? Like we're predicting that this person is playing, you know, it's going to start this week. But there's a reason why the depth chart changes every week, because somebody might not be starting from week to week. So the pressure that can happen for a person who really is maybe on the bubble about whether or not they're going to be starting or whether or not they're going to be able to you know, how many reps are going to have in the game can definitely be one of the mental challenges that a player might face. I just don't want any I mean, think about that. Every single week, you're trying to fit. Are you gonna be the mayor next week? Luckily,

Mayor Jensen

I have a four year cycle, not an every week cycle. So I mean, compared to the weekly cycle that four years were pretty good.

Elizabeth

Yeah. And so I'm not sure how other sports do it necessarily, because I don't have any eyes now in the NBA. So I'm not exactly sure. But for football, it can definitely be that way. So there's a lot of pressure about am I performing well, and you know, am I going to keep my spot?

Kristen

And that's what I was going to ask about fear and anxiety, fear of injury, fear of losing the job, fear of not getting to play whatever the fear might be? How do you help them work through fear?

Elizabeth

Well, we'll do guided meditations. We can do some EFT tapping EMDR Kristin referenced EMDR at the beginning of our conversation, eye movement, desensitisation reprocessing is such a long phrase, but that may be sensitive, it might be appropriate. In my work, one of the greatest challenges has been returning from a significant injury, there can be a lot of anxiety about that. Because if you think about it, if any of us have even gone through, let's say a car wreck, you kind of replayed in your mind over and over and over, you know, you get to that intersection. And you can kind of see how things happened. Well, when you get hurt on your field, you know, that's the field you're playing on at least half the season. So the opportunity to keep replaying something negative happening in your head is definitely present. And that may be the time that I would slide into something a little more clinical and try to work through that. So I love guided visualisations identifying the outcome that I want and leading a player through that starting as early as like, Okay, this is what it looks like when I get up in the morning of the game. And when I eat my breakfast, this is how I look. And this is how I feel. And then I'm walking down to the bus and how do I feel then so kind of walk you through a guided meditation and identifying the spaces where anxiety shows up, and then deep breathing through it are talking through how to manage that stress at the time. And usually we have some pretty good results. But definitely managing going back to the field after injury is definitely one that can produce anxiety,

Kristen

that makes a lot of sense and the fear of getting re injured. For sure. And that concern of what will happen if I get reinjured. And then headspace is great for that to the app we were talking about that has meditations that has coping strategies. It's an app you can download, and then use it at night or during the day or whenever you need it. What are some of the other pieces in terms of player getting stuck? Is it past trauma, how much of past trauma maybe it could even look like some of their quote unquote, failures in the past or things along those lines get replayed? How much of that do you have to work through with the players in order to clear the mindset to be able to play the game they want to play

Elizabeth

that can definitely show up one of the things I think people would probably be surprised to hear about is the role of relocation because you could play on you know, we've had what five different quarterbacks in our organisation in the last five years. So there's a lot of relocation a lot of moving around. And if a person has had a military family or you know a family that had some issues with poverty or moving was a trauma for them then to have this job now where you might be on five different teams in five years could definitely be something that can be a trouble spot for as an example if you have trouble connecting and the little kid on the inside of you that had to move around and wasn't accepted Well, you know, now has to move to this new team and you're trying to figure out how to fit into this new team again, you kind of go right back to you know that six year old that eight year old that 10 year old who was trying to fit in and so since team synergy is so important, that could be something that we may have to work through is how do you manage that trauma of having to relocate several times and then fit in now with the new team that would definitely be something that we could look at

Mayor Jensen

once I'm I've thought about to not only just the player relocating, but some of them have young families that you're picking up and moving I think about my I have four little kids and my actions in this job and down the road and that weighs on my mind heavily throughout every single day of my life. I would imagine that would be a whole nother layer of anxiety into into a player Yes,

Elizabeth

because you don't want to have to uproot your kids. And the other part about it is do Do you want to live separately from them to write because you do have like the opportunity for midseason trades, or all those kinds of things. And so it is a big decision when those kinds of transitions happen. And then let's be clear, it also affects the other staff too. So coaches also are moving around quite a bit as well as other support staff people can do too. So that definitely could be one trauma that could affect a player.

Mayor Jensen

I was just gonna ask this question about with athletes youth is a factor, do you see a difference between the younger and older athletes with what issues they had,

Elizabeth

you know, what I love about the older athletes, I just love this seasoning is that can I call it the season, it is the confidence it is the ability to communicate that we're going to be okay, it is the I've lived through a lot of things, I've seen things. And so this is how we got through that. And this is how you can get through that. So I think you know, that's just something that comes with life experience. And I've seen it be very, very helpful for younger players to be able to be around the older players who just had the opportunity to see that bounce back, one of my favourite types of players to work with is one that wasn't a draft pick necessarily, because they know they've had to to develop that resilience, right to find their place on the team and to be a significant contributor. And I love being able to work with players who didn't have necessarily the, you know, the ease of transitioning to this lifestyle in this career. So that's definitely one of the things as far as younger players are concerned, I think the role of social media probably affects younger players a bit more, because I've had the opportunity to have it be present from probably from their mom's wounds. Now, you know, today, and that definitely can change things. So I encourage players many times to take it easy on social media or to disconnect or to choose maybe one platform versus two or three platforms that they'd like to peruse and frequent just because it gets noisy. I think that college athletes are seeing it now too, that people really mean and hurtful and say things that are borderline criminal to people you know about them being hurt, because something hasn't gone well in the game or because a play hasn't gone well in the game, just tuning out some of that and quieting some of that noise, I think is one of the challenges that younger players come face for sure.

Kristen

One of the things I think's important too, and I know we have another question is relationships, marriages of relationships, and how those are impacted by being a professional athlete or just an athlete in general, because I can imagine that's a big part of being a professional athlete,

Elizabeth

it can definitely be challenging, I think we probably all have busy weeks where we're trying to figure out how to connect with our partners, well imagine if you, you know, are working 12 hour days and then gone on the weekend, too. So that's definitely something that can face them. I think there are some things put in place for significant others of players to try to support them. And typically, they have a really good close knit group of that can support each other through that. But it definitely is a challenge. But I find that it is still very typical for what we would all face it is how do we speak to each other? It is how do we identify each other's love languages? It is in a busy week, in a week when you feel overwhelmed. And it seems like there's not going to be time for anything, how do I prioritise you or communicate love and care and concern to you? It is are we meeting each other's needs? And so many of the questions are the same, it's just going to be maybe four different different schedule trying to figure out how to meet those needs.

Mayor Jensen

So what do you find the difference mentally between players that become successful versus maybe those who fall a bit short? Yeah, you

Elizabeth

know, I think it's self talk. I think those players who find a way to not take themselves too seriously to move on quickly from a setback, to identify what needs to be in their routine in their schedule, to help them reach their top performance, and probably also those who know how to reach out and ask for support. I think those are the ones that go further than the other ones. Because we've seen it I think we've all seen it probably in our own workplaces. And our own Friendship Circle is not only about talent, it's never only about talent, right? So talent can only take you so far, but character is what really is probably going to help you to maintain where talent, the doors that talent can open for you. And a part of that is in how you speak to yourself. And you got to have the conversation about your worth and your value not being determined by how well you perform on that field or on that court. It really is gonna be about how you're showing up in the world. And that's why it matters who you are on and off the field.

Mayor Jensen

That's so true. So good. That was like the fastest half an hour of my life.

Kristen

To because I wanted to get to diversity and inclusion too. So that'll be maybe you have to come back.

Mayor Jensen

Maybe if you come back, Elizabeth, because that was wonderful. And I think this is a very appropriate conversation on a day that I think I read last night that the cast of Ted lasso is going to be at the White House today. Talking about mental health. Yes, it is this so you know because I love that show, by the way. It's awesome. And it has very much to do with what we're talking about today with professional athletes and mental health. So they're at the White House today with the President. So this is just this is all came together. So beautiful. Elizabeth, thank you so much if it's okay, we made hooky again. Maybe this summer we can continue this conversation thanks to the Colts and again for leaning in on this topic is so so important. Kristen, if there's any more people need to turn to right now they're having some mental challenges. Where do they go?

Kristen

988 This is the new Universal 911 is what we do for emergencies. If you have a physical emergency for a mental health emergency, it's 988. You can text call anytime. 24/7 Someone is available to help you to walk you through things. Please know you don't have to do this alone. You matter. You're important. You're loved and you're worth it. Elizabeth, you are so amazing. Thank you for your heart and soul and your time. You're so grateful for you.

Elizabeth

Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure guys.

Kristen

Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoy this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share it with a friend or a family member. And for more information about how to get connected visit Kristen k r i s t e n d Boice BO ice.com. Thanks and have a great day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai