In this episode, Ryan Stock covers...

• His illustrious high school basketball career and coaching career
• His relationship with alcohol
• The athlete identity & feeling like nothing is ever good enough
• Self-love & control

Find Ryan Stock at the links below:

• MindSport Website
• One Last Drop on Amazon
• One Last Drop (The Doc)
• Conscious Athlete Guide
• Twitter

In this episode, Dr. Gunter covers...

• Mental health for athletes & coaches
• What coaches can do to support  athletes
• Her path to finding clinical sport psychology
• Stigma around mental health
• How the systems contribute to our mental health states

Find Dr. Gunter at the links below:

• Dr. Kensa Gunter's website
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

In this episode, Dr. Rairdbard covers...

• Mental health for athletes & coaches
• What coaches can do to support  athletes
• What leadership skills coaches should practice
• How to grow skills like empathy and understanding

Find Dr. Raidbard and his book at the links below:

• Lead Like a Pro book
• Dr. Raidbard's website
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Mental health in elite athletes: International Olympic Committee consensus statement (2019)

Document link: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/53/11/667

My notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fwu3k1lEgUtqrNeCj7oHMK-xYGzVI_JeNGhGWLA8sSs/edit?usp=sharing

Part 3 covers:

• Major stressors & key environmental factors that influence elite athlete mental health
• How injury, performance and mental health intersect
• Injury risk factors
• Response to and recovery from injury and illness
• Barriers to seeking care for mental health symptoms & disorders
• Facilitators to seeking care for mental health symptoms & disorders
• Transition out of sport
• Creating an environment that supports mental well-being and resilience

Document link: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/53/11/667

My notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fwu3k1lEgUtqrNeCj7oHMK-xYGzVI_JeNGhGWLA8sSs/edit?usp=sharing

Part 2 covers:

• 7 out of the 11 symptoms & disorders examined
  • post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma-related disorders
  • eating disorders
  • attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
  • bipolar and psychotic disorders
  • sport-related concussion
  • substance use and substance use disorders
  • gambling disorder and other behavioural addictions

Document link: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/53/11/667

My notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fwu3k1lEgUtqrNeCj7oHMK-xYGzVI_JeNGhGWLA8sSs/edit?usp=sharing

Part 1 covers:

• The committee's abstract for the report, highlighting what they covered and why
• Definitions for "elite athletes" and "mental health disorders"
• General prevalence
• General approaches
• 4 out of the 11 symptoms & disorders examined
  • sleep disorders and sleep concerns
  • major depressive disorder and depression symptoms
  • suicide
  • anxiety and related disorders

In this episode, Ryan shares stories about...

• his high school & collegiate baseball career
• a freshman baseball game that changed his trajectory
• self-doubt and a possible solution
• purpose in life
• his organization, Psychathletes

Follow Psychathletes & Ryan at the links below:

• Website
• Facebook page
• Instagram
• Discord
• Podcast

Dr. Sacco is a Health and Sport/Performance Psychologist at Cleveland Clinic.  He obtained his doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Auburn University and taught student athletes in the athletic department for 3+ years.  After working for more than 5 years in medical/health psychology with individuals with a wide range of complex health problems, particularly neurological problems like Multiple Sclerosis, chronic pain and headaches, and concussions, Dr. Sacco began a more formalized sport psychology practice within Cleveland Clinic Sports Medicine and Orthopedics.  

He works with a wide range of athletes and performers from middle school through professional athletes and well into retirement.  Dr. Sacco also works as part of the NFL Trust Retired Players Program at Cleveland Clinic.  When not "working at work" Dr. Sacco enjoys spending as much time as he can with his wife (Karen) and three kids (Juliana, Lucas and Gabriel).  You can often find him coaching his kids' youth sports teams, traversing the greater Cleveland area, or engaged in one of his favorite activities, being a fan at his kids sporting events.

In this episode, Dr. Sacco offers two ways athletes can improve their mental health today: 

1. Limit social media, especially during or before competition
2. Seek professional help from a therapist

Mackleen Desravines, Documentary Filmmaker

Mackleen Desravines is a documentary filmmaker based in Atlanta, GA. Her current film, Chris is Not Crazy, is about an athlete struggling with a mental illness. Donate to her project at the link below to help her reach her goal of $7,000.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/christian-is-not-crazy#/

Find Mackleen's website & socials below:

• Mackleen.com 
• @directedbymack Instagram
• @directedbymack Twitter
• @doryansparkman Instagram (co-writer) 
• Facebook.com/madfilmhouse

Contact the Everything Athletes Show

contact@everythingathletes.com

Sign up for the virtual event "The Athlete Identity in the Transition Journey" with ExtraOrdinaire, a community of former athletes and Olympians staying extraordinary in the everyday world. SIGN UP HERE. 
 

Kim's Ingredients for GOOD Mental Health (Part 2):

8. Don't fight who you are

9. Create weekly excitement

10. Good sleep habits

11. Attend therapy

12. Write a list of your favorite things (& do them!)

13. Practice self-compassion, not perfectionism

14. Set proper expectations for life & emotions

Kim's Ingredients for GOOD Mental Health

1. Eliminate caffeine & alcohol
2. Physical exercise
3. Iceberg thinking to reduce anxiety
4. Connect with others whenever I can
5. Don't take things personally & always do my best
6. Maintenance of my human being (nature, deep breathing)
7. Help & support others whenever I can

For #8-14, stay tuned for the next episode! 

We all may experience anxiety or depression at some point in our lives. For some of us, it may be worse than others. Let's make it really difficult for anxiety and depression to enter our minds in the first place. Eliminating psychoactive substances such as caffeine and alcohol helps your mind operate from a rooted, stable perspective without the emotional spikes brought on by caffeine and alcohol. 

Kim talks about her personal detoxes from both and how she limits her intake of both caffeine and alcohol. 

Katie, Nutrition Coach: https://www.instagram.com/fueling.former.athletes/

Wandering Bear Coffee: https://wanderingbearcoffee.com/

Tough love is defined as: treating yourself sternly (or what may seem harsh) with the intent of helping yourself in the long run.

When tough love is needed in your life

• When you've reached your limit of dissatisfying results
• When you notice you're feeling sorry for yourself, feeling victimized and not taking responsibility
• When you start to get really clear on what you want in life

What it looks like & how to do it

• Be so real & honest with yourself
• Bring in the numbers & quantify your goals
• Police yourself on choosing the easy, comfortable path
• Play "Would You Rather?" with yourself
• Give yourself trial periods to test out change

Learn how to effectively cope during your period of injury by acknowledging your feelings, expressing gratitude for the health you do have and finding an alternative stress outlet. Proactively manage your mental health during a vulnerable period of injury will set you up for emotional well-being.

He is now enrolled at Cleveland State University, where he is seeking an additional master's in clinical mental health counseling to become a licensed therapist with the goal of working with collegiate athletes.

Find Sean below:

The Fine Line book 

Wellsportcle Social Media Pages

• TikTok
• Instagram

Learn why we hate uncertainty and why the sports community's current view of injury adds to the already stressful situation.

Order your own copy of the book on Amazon

About the Book

My athlete identity was ruining my life. I retired from collegiate swimming a decade ago, yet my intense drive toward perfectionist ideals plagued me in adulthood. I was stuck in a never-ending hamster wheel of desiring more, faster, stronger, smarter, prettier, nicer, happier, better, better, better, better, BETTER. I was burning bright, burning fast, and burning out.

Ultimately, my extreme behavior led to a heartbreaking pitfall hurting the person I loved the most. Enough was enough. I needed to understand why I was the way I was. My personality traits, such as my relentless competitive nature and lack of compassion, were reinforced over 15 years as an athlete. Those traits needed to be examined, understood, and delicately resolved as I was on the fast-track to a lifetime of unhappiness. So, I decided to sit down and write a book. This book.

I researched psychology principles, observed the most elite athletes of our time, reviewed my own life experiences, and attempted to unravel what it means to be an athlete. If you’re reading this, I’m glad you have this book in your hands, but I wrote this for myself. I embarked on this project because there wasn’t anything out there to help me navigate, unpack, decipher, and grow from the athlete identity. Therapy had not worked. There was no YouTube series to follow. There wasn’t anything I could find about the modern athlete journey that made sense of it all. This book is what I wish I had when I was 21.

-Kimberly Carducci, Author

Rosie is on a mission to raise awareness of the power of music to enhance sports performance, and the ways that we can re-connect with and be in control of our emotions through the music we listen to, which in turn affects how we perform. Rosie is launching her coaching business in September 2021, and you can follow her work over on instagram - @iamrosiemead

Rosie Mead's Links:

• Musica Music & Wellbeing Website
• Soulful High Performance Instagram
• Be Your Own DJ Podcast

Kerrie has focused her career on seeking out solutions to individual, family, and community problems through clinical work, policy reform, and building nonprofit social service programs.

In addition to her 1:1 clinical work with psychotherapy clients, she supervises and coaches, clinical social workers; facilitates professional development and training groups, and oversees all aspects of care, training, and fidelity to A Good Place Therapy’s various models of service delivery.

Check out Kerrie Mohr's practice, A Good Place Therapy

• Instagram: @a_goodplace
• Facebook: @agoodplacetherapy
• Twitter: @a_GoodPlace
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a-good-place/
• Company Website: https://www.agoodplacetherapy.com/

Kerrie's Psyched Magazine Article - Perfectionism's Dark Side: Lessons from Japan

• Basic biology of an endorphin crash
• Athletes die twice
• Driving purpose in life fades away
• Battle with perfectionism

How can we navigate through it?

• Celebrate
• Grieve the death of your identity 
• Closure
• Volunteer
• Break the curse of perfectionism

*These are just a handful of cherry-picked topics related to the retirement transition. For my full analysis of why entering post-sport life is so challenging stay tuned for our book later this year.

Navigate Retirement & Thrive - access our 29-video-lesson online course to help you navigate through your own retirement, check out the curriculum at Udemy.com.

When we take a moment to understand our perfectionist mindset, we can start to build a strong foundation to manage the moments that feel as though they don't measure up.

Author:  Andre Agassi

Buy Open  on Amazon

Link to transcript of the full book review: www.everythingathletes.com/everything-athletes-book-reviews-open-by-andre-agassi

Favorite quotes from the book:

Page 8 - “Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves - and answer...why? Because tennis so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers…Tennis is the closest to solitary confinement.”

19 - “...he plays with desperation, a more powerful drug than cortisone.” (about his opponent) 

20 - “I win the next point. Deuce again. Elation. I give him the next point. Backhand into the net. Advantage Baghdatis. Depression.”

25 - “People often ask what it’s like, this tennis life, and I can never think how to describe it. But that word comes closest. More than anything else, it’s a wrenching, thrilling, horrible, astonishing whirl.”

29 - “I like the feeling of hitting a ball dead perfect. It’s the only peace. When I do something perfect, I enjoy a split second of sanity and calm.” 

38 - “...I’ll now have a loss on my record - forever. Nothing can ever change it. I can’t endure the thought, but it’s inescapable: I’m fallible. Blemished. Imperfect. A million balls hit against the dragon - for what?”

62 - (after losing) “I look into the stands for my father, and he’s staring down, concerned. Not angry - concerned. I’m concerned too, but damned angry also, sick with self-loathing...I say hateful things to myself as I pack my tennis bag.”

90 - (talk with his friend about rigged carnival games to win a teddy bear prize) “Nah. You just have to toss two rubber rings around the neck of a Coke bottle. We’re athletes. We’ve got this.”  

127 - “What if today wasn’t a bad day, but my best day? I think I’d rather die.”

130 - “People, I think, don’t understand the pain of losing in a final. You practice and travel and grind to get ready. You win for one week, four matches in a row. Then you lose that final match and your name isn’t on the trophy, your name isn’t in the record books. You lost only once, but you’re a loser.”

132 - “I laugh more than I’ve laughed since I was a boy, and even though it’s tinged with hysteria, the laughter has healing properties. For a few hours, late at night, laughter makes me feel like the old Andre, whoever that is.”

206 - “I’ve always noticed the way players silently anoint the alpha dog in their midst, the way they single out the one player who’s feeling it, who’s likeliest to win. At this tournament, for the first time, I’m that player. I feel them all watching me in the locker room. I feel them noting my every move, the little things I do, even studying how I organize my bag. They’re quicker to step aside when I walk by, eager to give up the training table. A new degree of respect is directed toward me, and while I try not to take it seriously, I can’t help but enjoy it.”

218 - “Every day this loss feels new. Every day I tell myself to stop thinking about it, and every day I can’t. The only respite is fantasizing about retirement.”

231 - “This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting value or meaning. This is why we’re here. To make each other feel safe.”

255-256 - “A look of pure relief, and gratitude, and joe, washes over her face, and in this look, in this courageous little girl, I find the thing I’ve been seeking, the philosopher’s stone that unites all the experiences, good and bad, of the last few years. Her suffering, her resilient smile in the face of that suffering, my part in easing her suffering - this, this is the reason for everything. How many times must I be shown? This is why we’re here. To fight through the pain and, when possible, to relieve the pain of others. So simple. So hard to see.”

226 - “Besides, it’s always easier psychologically to lose in the semis than in the final.” 

272 - “I’ve been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep.”

304 - “I raise my arms and my racket falls on the clay. I’m sobbing. I’m rubbing my head. I’m terrified by how good this feels. Winning isn’t supposed to feel this good. Winning is never supposed to matter this much. But it does, it does, I can’t help it.” 

304 - “Without Nick I wouldn’t be here. Without all the ups and downs with Brooke, even the misery of our final days, this wouldn’t be possible. I even reserve some gratitude for myself, for all the good and bad choices that led here.”

• How we change in moments of competition
• Positive & negative attention
•  Self-Worth and a constant feedback loop
• Competing
• Winning

• Why is studying identity so important? 
• How we view athletes as a kid (& consequently how that shapes our lifelong view of sports and athletes)
• How the chronological journey of participating in sport snowballs into a strong attachment of “being an athlete”
• Typical thought patterns & beliefs of athletes

1. Root yourself in reality
2. Manage your thoughts using Brooke Castillo's Thought Model (CTFAR) & The Life Coach School

Brene Brown Quote: “Our brain is wired, above all else, for survival. So, the minute we have a threat, whether it’s anxiety, fear, shame, whatever that threat is, our brain says, ‘Give me a story’...Our brain recognizes the pattern of a narrative: Beginning, middle, end. ‘Give me a story that tells me who’s safe, who’s good, who’s bad, who’s dangerous.’” (link)

Dr. Jim Taylor, PhD Psychology Quotes:

• “Emotions are as much a part of the competitive sports experience as physical conditioning, equipment, technique, strategy, and teamwork. It could be argued that emotions are the 'raison d’être” of sports competition.'" (link)
• “The range of events and emotions that are experienced through athletic involvement seem to be both numerous and extreme compared to the normal population.” (link)

Check out more about Everything Athletes: www.everythingathletes.com

Want to submit a topic for us to discuss? Shoot us a note at: contact@everythingathletes.com

If you're digging this content, leave us a 5-star review!

Author: Katie Hoff, Co-Author: Richard Bader

Buy Blueprint on Amazon

Link to transcript of my book review as well as our in-depth thought assessment: https://www.everythingathletes.com/book-reviews/blueprint-by-katie-hoff

Brooke Castillo's Thought Model - The Life Coach School

Mac started The Sideline Perspective as a platform for storytelling and support for injured and retiring athletes. Through stories, interviews, and podcasts TSP has helped to shed light on the hidden challenges competitive athletes face when temporarily sidelined or no longer able to compete.

https://thesidelineperspective.com/

Information about John and his work can be found at www.johnhaime.com.

John's new book, Ride Big: https://www.horseandriderbooks.com/product/RIBI.html

His article "What's Next - A Perspective of Athlete Identity"  : https://johnhaime.com/2015/04/whats-next-a-perspective-of-athlete-identity/

Horizon Leader Group: https://horizonleadergroup.com/

Melinda Harrison's book Personal Next: https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Next-Athletes-Navigating-Transition-ebook/dp/B084HJ79L2

Within the three years that followed, she worked through the pain and struggles of rebuilding her identity. Not as an athlete, but as a human being. 

She is speaking out for the athletes that feel alone in their struggle and believe that they should be able to handle it, even though they aren’t. 

Kacee new helps past and current high performing athletes push through the mental struggles of body confidence, self-image and shame to transition and thrive in and after competition.

Short-stop turned First baseman, his insight into a life post-sport extends well beyond his years! 

Drawing from her progressive research, Melinda has deep insights on both the critical aspects that make up success as well as the transitional elements that people experience. In 2015, she completed over 100 structured interviews with individuals who had successfully transitioned from a major accomplishment(s) to a new challenge.

This research included the experiences from included a broad spectrum of athletes such as Olympians - including several medalists, World Championship medalists, athletes from NFL, MLS, MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA, LPGA, Cycling and NCAA athletes. It also included cancer survivors and individuals who have experienced an addiction or survived a significant tragedy. In April of 2020 she published her first book, “Personal Next” — aimed at aiding athletes and other high-performers through transition.

In combination with her business experience, background as an Olympic athlete (Los Angeles 1984), board experience and her entrepreneurial and community successes, she brings commitment and accountability to each client. Melinda loves coaching —working with individuals and teams to create a deeper self-awareness, develop opportunities and move towards goals

www.melindaharrison.com

Not only do we aim to remove the stigma of mental health in sports, but we provide tactical strategies and mental exercises to help athletes handle the toughest moments on their journey: defeat, injury and retirement.

Share with other athletes, coaches and trainers so we can all enjoy the sports we love so much.

#athletes #mentalhealth #athletics #sports

To read my actual email I sent after losing a tennis match, click here.

Find out more about us at www.everythingathletes.com