Latest / Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast / 77. Pre-Game Anxiety? 3 Mindfulness Tips to Overcome It

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77. Pre-Game Anxiety? 3 Mindfulness Tips to Overcome It · Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast

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If you have been listening to the Eat More Carbs podcast, you
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online at twobefore.com. This is the Eat more Carbs
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podcast. Hello and welcome to the Eat
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More Carbs podcast. My name is Jenna Fischer and I'm
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here with my Co host Riley Beatty.
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If you're living anymore carbs podcast and this is your
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reminder to make sure that you're sharing with your friends
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and fellow athletes and also reading and reviewing our
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podcast below. It really helps out our small
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business. I am so excited for today's
0:56
podcast, and I know that everybody's going to learn so
0:58
much during this episode, but before we get into it, what's
1:01
your high and low So. I'm going to start off with my
1:04
low. This is a little bit of a rant,
1:06
but it's just kind of highlights, I think, the dark
1:09
side of social media. I've been having this happen to
1:12
me a lot lately. It kind of hurt my soul a little
1:15
bit. I don't usually get affected by
1:16
things like on social media, but a lot of people have been
1:19
sharing my content lately and they've been blocking out my
1:21
name. So they haven't been giving me
1:23
credit for content, right? They'll share like a reel and
1:27
then they'll block the name. And I just thought that's not
1:30
cool because we're all out here trying to make things better for
1:33
people and providing a lot of free advice to support the
1:36
brand, please. That would bother me too.
1:39
When it comes to sharing other people's information, sharing
1:43
other people's content, like it's service for service, right?
1:46
When we have to think about it from that standpoint that like
1:48
we should be crediting the original content creator if
1:51
we're going to be sharing their content because then kind of
1:54
almost looks like we're trying to pass it off as our own.
1:56
Yeah, and like if you want to use your like our content to
1:58
like help, you know, share your message, like that's totally
2:01
fine. But you know, like, just give us
2:02
a little shout out. I'm sorry, that's a.
2:04
Sorry I'm a really negative note but.
2:06
OK, well let's flip the script. What's your high all?
2:08
Right, so my high is related to food.
2:10
I know that this is shocking because we are dietitians.
2:13
It's Izzy more carbs podcast. I thought I would give an update
2:16
on Charlie's feeding situation because she has started solids
2:21
and she's actually doing really, really well with it.
2:23
We started a little bit earlier. We started probably at 4 1/2
2:26
months. So, you know, recommendations is
2:28
like anywhere from four to six months, but she was really
2:30
interested in food and she has had really good head control.
2:34
So those are kind of like the two things that you look for
2:35
someone starting solids. But so far she has had oatmeal,
2:40
oatmeal with peanut butter, which is amazing because I've
2:43
been tracking and I was trying to introduce early to make sure
2:46
that we don't have an allergy, which is amazing.
2:48
She's done bananas, apples, broccoli, carrots, mashed
2:52
potatoes. I was just like a potato, but we
2:54
did some breast milk with it. And then she's also done, we've
2:58
done like a little bit of vanilla ice cream because, you
3:00
know, gotta make it fun. The only thing she's not super
3:04
excited about is carrots. But that's the only food that I
3:08
used from like a baby food product.
3:11
Everything else I like mashed myself.
3:13
So I think maybe she's like a fresh food girly.
3:16
But besides that, she's actually been doing really well with her
3:20
solids. Wow, that's amazing.
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It's actually super fun. She like grabs the spoon, which
3:25
I wasn't like expecting, especially, you know, when we
3:28
see videos online or you see like kids in movies, like you
3:30
always see parents like here's an airplane, like coming
3:33
through. But like she grabs a spoon for
3:34
me and like puts it in her mouth and was like, I'm in charge
3:37
here. I'm in charge of my fueling and
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she's a really good like acceptance to a lot of different
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foods. That's fantastic.
3:43
It's awesome that she's so accepting of it at such a young
3:46
age. That makes feeling so fine,
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yeah. An avocado too.
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I forgot avocado. I can't believe I forgot
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avocado. But big avocado girly.
3:53
What about you? What are your high in your life
3:54
for this week? My high is also food related so
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again what a shock. My favorite season is summer
4:01
fruit season because I love summer fruit.
4:04
Like white nectarines are my absolute favorite fruit.
4:08
If I could eat one thing for the rest of my life and be like
4:10
totally nutritionally complete and they were always perfectly
4:13
ripe white nectarines, I think that would be it.
4:15
Like I love them so much, but I also love like cherries and
4:19
watermelon and stuff like that. My problem is that like I over
4:22
purchase them. I love summer fruit season.
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So I'm so excited that like we have such great fresh produce
4:26
right now. My lowest kind of weather
4:28
related. It's really, really hot right
4:30
now and even with the air conditioner on in our gym, it's
4:33
so uncomfortably warm. Unfortunately, maybe
4:36
fortunately, depending on the time of the year, like there are
4:39
doors to, you know, air out the building that happened to be
4:43
near the equipment that I use for most of my cardio.
4:46
I think a lot of the warm air just gets in through people
4:49
opening and closing the door and stuff like that.
4:51
So even with the air conditioning, it's a super warm
4:53
environment to try to workout in, which means that I'm getting
4:56
really, really, really sweaty, which means that my skin is
5:01
breaking out really, really, really bad.
5:03
And I think it's just from like such heavy amounts of sweating
5:06
because it's so warm where I'm working out.
5:09
So that's my that's my love. Today's guest on the podcast is
5:12
Emily Perrin. I think Emily is actually our
5:14
first repeat guest that we have had on the podcast.
5:18
Emily is a mindfulness and performance coach.
5:20
She's also a licensed master of social work and former D1
5:23
athlete. And she's talking all about
5:25
pregame anxiety and nerves today.
5:27
Emily, welcome back to the. Podcast.
5:29
Thanks. Excited to be here.
5:31
Thanks for having me. We're really excited to talk to
5:33
you today about like understanding pregame anxiety
5:35
and nerves. So can you just tell us a little
5:38
bit about how pregame anxiety typically manifests in athletes
5:41
and what impact that can have on their performance?
5:44
Yeah, I love this topic. What I'll start with is I think
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in general, what we're seeing on social media, TikTok, Instagram
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reels around performance anxiety is too simplified.
5:56
I think we really need to take a step back and remember that like
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emotions, humans anxiety in particular is really
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complicated. It's very individual, it's very
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nuanced. There are no two people that
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experience performance anxiety the same way.
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I think it would be really helpful to just kind of like
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talk about what that is and then we can really get into, well,
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how does that manifest and how does that impact people?
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So essentially anxiety of any level.
6:24
And sometimes I even hesitate to use the term performance anxiety
6:28
because I'm really, this may be a hot take, right?
6:31
We're already getting controversial and spicy and
6:33
we're not even like 2 minutes in.
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I don't know, I'm not convinced that performance anxiety is ever
6:38
just about your performance. I'm really not.
6:41
And we can get into why that is, but anxiety is an emotion.
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It is an emotion that comes from what we call the fear family.
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And fear and anxiety are really OK.
6:52
They're a very normal part of life.
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They are needed. We need fear, we need anxiety.
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And they're not bad. And something I really try to
7:01
communicate to my athletes often is like, there's nothing wrong
7:04
with you. You are not broken because you
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get nervous before you play. It's not your fault.
7:09
It's actually a really normal part of being a human and being
7:12
a performer. Now where things start to get
7:15
tricky is that anxiety. And let's again, take the
7:18
performance element out of this and just look at anxiety.
7:20
Well, that occurs on a spectrum like anything.
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And so part of the, the harder conversation is like, well,
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what's normal and what's not normal?
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I don't know. I'm a licensed mental
7:30
professional and like I don't, I can't even tell you what's
7:32
normal. When performance anxiety is
7:35
starting to impact an athlete in profound ways, that's when we
7:40
really want to start to work with it.
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So here's what I mean by profound ways.
7:44
If this is starting to actually impact your day-to-day living.
7:48
So I have worked with athletes, worked with people, I've dealt
7:51
with this myself where you have practice or a game at 6:00 on a
7:56
Tuesday and you are already starting to feel the effects of
8:00
that anxiety at like 8:00 in the morning on Tuesday or even some
8:04
people Monday night. OK, we might want to work with
8:07
that. You're spending so much time, so
8:10
much of your day-to-day feeling nervous and anxious because you
8:14
have a performance, a game, a practice at 6:00 at night.
8:17
Like that's when we want to take a look at that and say, OK, we
8:20
need to help an athlete navigate that, work with that.
8:23
But I know many people, I know many athletes, many performers.
8:26
Like even when I go in to work with a team or speak, I get a
8:30
little bit nervous. It doesn't really impact me,
8:32
right? It doesn't really do anything to
8:35
how I show up, how I actually engage with the team I'm working
8:39
with, how I present. And so in that sense, like I'm
8:42
also really convinced that like just because you have pre
8:45
performance anxiety doesn't mean you need to do anything about
8:48
it. I think here's a really hard
8:49
truth. Anxiety as a feeling both
8:53
mentally and physiologically is not comfortable.
8:55
I don't know a single person that likes to feel anxious.
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It's not fun, it doesn't feel good, but it doesn't actually
9:02
kill us. I am really not convinced that
9:05
just because you have pre performance anxiety, you need to
9:08
necessarily do anything about it.
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I mean, I actually know many people that have pre performance
9:13
anxiety and it actually helps them a little bit.
9:16
So I think that the bigger question is like in what way is
9:19
your pre performance anxiety showing up and impacting you?
9:22
So I think you bring up a really interesting point.
9:24
And growing up, just like you playing competitive soccer, I
9:28
always heard nerves were something that was normal and
9:31
something that a lot of people used to say is like, your body
9:35
responds to you being excited and nervous in the same way.
9:41
Is that kind of what you're talking about here?
9:43
Is there any like truth? To that I would say yes and no.
9:45
And this is where it gets really nuanced.
9:47
Let's maybe even go backwards and just look at like, OK,
9:50
what's happening when we have an emotion?
9:52
Well, the first thing I always explain is that emotions are not
9:55
just a mind thing. They're not a cognitive thing.
9:57
They're actually a body based thing.
9:59
I mean, emotions start as a physiological process.
10:02
They start in our nervous system.
10:03
So how an emotion works is something, whether it's internal
10:06
or external, is occurring and the the body physiologically
10:10
responds within the nervous system.
10:12
When it comes to anxiety, we're talking about what we would say
10:15
as a more sympathetic nervous system state.
10:17
There's parts of the brain that are involved, adrenaline and
10:19
cortisol are involved so that that physiological reaction
10:22
starts taking place. And then here's the thing with
10:25
emotions that I think a lot of people are missing.
10:27
Then we make, we as humans make meaning around what we are
10:33
feeling. And that meaning making comes
10:36
from a couple different places. It comes from culture.
10:38
I think this is a big area that people often forget about when
10:42
talking about emotions. I mean, we actually know there's
10:45
a great researcher, Lisa Feldman Barrett.
10:47
I mean, we know that emotions are not the same across all
10:50
cultures. It's so based on our culture,
10:52
the culture that we grow up in, the family unit we grow up in,
10:56
we will make meaning that will influence how we make meaning of
10:59
emotion. Also our lived experience.
11:01
So everything we've been through up until that performance.
11:05
So this is the other thing that is very nuanced.
11:08
If we have an athlete that has had lived experience where every
11:12
single time that athlete is coming to a practice or a game
11:16
and they have just been berated by a coach, they have been
11:20
shamed by their parents. They have received messages
11:23
after every practice, every game that they are not worthy because
11:27
of how they do or do not play that is going to directly impact
11:33
the performance anxiety that that athlete has moving forward.
11:37
So again, this then gets to, and this is so much so aligned with
11:40
a lot of the work that you guys do.
11:41
Like we can't just generically be prescribing things for people
11:45
for performance anxiety. It just doesn't work that way.
11:47
To get back to what you said, Riley is like, OK, so our body
11:51
experiences anxiety and excitement in the same way.
11:54
I'm not really sure. So if we look at the nervous
11:59
system, that sympathetic chain, so inside the body, in the
12:02
nervous system, the nervous system, you have basically 2
12:04
main branches. You have the sympathetic state
12:07
and then you have the parasympathetic state.
12:08
The sympathetic state is going to be what everyone often calls
12:12
fight or flight, but your sympathetic state is also
12:14
mobilization. So yes, you actually need your
12:17
sympathetic state to go out and play sports.
12:20
You know, cortisol and adrenaline are going to be
12:23
involved in excitement and getting going and, and going out
12:26
and playing a match. I'm not necessarily convinced
12:29
and I, I don't really align with this statement of like, OK, so
12:33
when anxiety arises, just tell yourself that it's excitement
12:36
because it doesn't really work that way.
12:39
And here's the other fun fact that people are often missing
12:41
with anxiety is part of again, because it is linked to your
12:45
threat system. So even within that sympathetic
12:48
branch, you have two systems. You have a threat system and you
12:52
have a safety system. So the safety system and that
12:54
within that sympathetic branch is going to be that
12:56
mobilization. That's going to be the fun.
12:58
That's going to be the go out. And I can play my sport and I
13:00
compete. I can, I can enjoy it.
13:02
But there's also the threat system, which is like something
13:05
in our body is registering that we are not OK and we need that
13:09
system, but we have to understand that anxiety is a
13:11
part of that system. There is a threat.
13:13
We are literally registering in our bodies a sense of threat.
13:17
And so the chemicals that are being pumped through your body,
13:20
that adrenaline, that cortisol through that threat system are
13:23
going to turn off your prefrontal cortex.
13:25
Your prefrontal cortex is what enables you to rationally,
13:28
logically, reasonably go, oh, let me think about this in, in a
13:33
different way. Let me think about this as
13:35
excitement. Like your, your prefrontal
13:37
cortex is not fully online when we are in that more anxious kind
13:42
of sympathetic state. And so This is why, and I know
13:44
we're going to get into this a little bit later, but like, This
13:46
is why when anxiety in that threat system are online, you're
13:50
not thinking clearly. So no amount of thinking is
13:53
going to really help you out. We're, we're not trying to help
13:57
an athlete work with their anxiety through more thinking.
14:00
It's not going to work. So I don't really of this, the
14:03
new dialogue that's kind of started around the oh, well,
14:06
every time you feel anxious, just tell yourself it's
14:08
excitement. It doesn't work like that.
14:10
And I think the better route is to actually go, oh, hmm, get
14:14
really in tune. And this is where mindfulness
14:16
is, is such a big part of that and go, hmm, yeah, actually I am
14:20
anxious. And to really validate that
14:22
because once we validate that and we go, oh, this is, this is
14:25
anxiety. This is, I'm sensing some level
14:28
of threat here, some level of uncertainty, something doesn't
14:31
feel totally OK. And and that's OK, right?
14:34
And now I can actually work with it, as opposed to feeling that
14:38
and then forcing yourself into this little box of excitement
14:41
that you don't actually feel. I love of the Olympic trials,
14:44
I'm watching a lot of Olympic trials right now, but I notice
14:47
when a lot of athletes like come up to the blocks before swimming
14:50
or get ready to run their race, like they're showing
14:52
physiological signs of nerves. But it sounds like we can or
14:56
there are techniques that you recommend to kind of help
14:59
athletes channel the feelings that their feelings utilize that
15:02
towards a positive sense versus allowing it to take over to like
15:07
a a state where they can't then perform.
15:08
Yeah, 100%. I always like to say at a
15:11
foundational level, right, that like the emotional were feeling,
15:14
they're just data. They're just information,
15:15
They're signs, right? What is the sign telling you?
15:18
Well, when you're anxious or you're nervous about a
15:20
performance, it's telling you, right that you know, your your
15:23
body is sensing some type of threat, some type of
15:27
uncertainty. And I'm not OK.
15:28
You know, again, it does come from that fear family.
15:30
I'm not a huge fan of saying, OK, well, now let me force
15:33
myself to just use that to feel excited.
15:35
People do not have to agree with me.
15:36
But what I will say is, again, as someone who has dealt with
15:40
pretty chronic and debilitating anxiety and panic disorder for
15:43
over a decade, that's never worked for me.
15:45
And in the clients that I work with and the athletes I've been
15:48
working with over the last five years, it's never worked for
15:50
them, not once. Better route is to really, and I
15:53
think this is just kind of like emotion regulation 101 is yes,
15:56
really acknowledge kind of what's going on in the
15:58
Physiology. We take that as data assign.
16:01
We validate that because that's real.
16:03
It makes so I mean, I am such a firm believer in like, of course
16:06
you're at the freaking Olympic trials for God's sakes, right?
16:09
Like of course you're feeling some type of nerves.
16:12
That makes so much. And the more that we actually
16:14
validate that for ourselves, the more that actually helps us work
16:18
with the Physiology. My number one message around pre
16:21
performance anxiety is work with the body first, then come back
16:25
and pare the mind in, work with the Physiology, work with what
16:28
is actually going on in your mind, body system, your nervous
16:31
system first, because you have to do that in order to then
16:35
bring that more cognitive, rational thinking brain back
16:38
online. Yeah.
16:39
I mean, one of the things that you'll see, especially in the
16:42
sport of swimming, you'll even see this if you watch EPL or you
16:45
know, obviously the Euros are going on right now.
16:47
So when Subs come up to the line, you'll see a lot of those
16:50
guys kind of jump, tuck their knees up right a couple times.
16:53
I love that stuff. It's all body based stuff.
16:55
I mean, this is the world of Cymatics.
16:57
There's a couple kind of if we're going to break this into
16:59
categories, I think of them, I would say a breath based
17:02
category because that is body based, right?
17:05
When you're working with the breath, you're working with the
17:06
body, body based category. So actually working with the
17:09
feeling of the body, a movement based and then and Co regulation
17:14
is another one. I mean, I think so many people
17:16
forget and there's just this massive wave right now of just
17:20
nervous system fad and and self regulation.
17:22
But I think what we really forget is that people, other
17:25
people, our teammates, our loved ones can be so helpful in
17:29
navigating emotion, in navigating performance anxiety.
17:33
I mean, I think one of the one of the coolest ways in this work
17:36
that I've seen people really start to kind of navigate and
17:39
work with their anxiety is using other people going and having a
17:43
teammate and passing or going and grabbing a teammate and
17:47
doing a walk or like a lap around the field before they get
17:49
started for warmups. Other people can be so helpful
17:52
in regulating our emotions and particularly anxiety.
17:55
So we can't forget about that. And within that, this is where I
17:58
think it gets really nuanced. And really This is why I don't
18:01
ever give this kind of like cookie cutter approach of like,
18:03
Oh yeah, this is what you do with pre performance anxiety.
18:06
I think it's a formula. It's body first, then bring in
18:09
the mind and you can work with the body in a couple different
18:11
ways. And your job is to really find
18:14
what resonates and what lands with you.
18:16
Is it more breath based stuff? Is it more body based stuff?
18:19
Is it movement? Is it that Co regulation working
18:21
with other people? Is it all of them?
18:23
I know I'm a movement person. So the first thing that I'm
18:25
going to do when I start to feel nervous, I mean, one of the
18:28
things I do before I go in and I do a talk or I do some type of
18:32
speaking thing is like I'm getting up, I'm moving my body
18:35
in some type of way, whether that's a workout, a walk.
18:37
And then the, the moments leading up to that talk or that
18:42
the workshop that I'm going to do was like, I'm trying to move
18:44
my body as much as I can to really work with the Physiology,
18:48
work with that sympathetic state because it has to metabolize, it
18:51
has to go somewhere. So then once I do that, that
18:55
then allows me to settle back in, tell the body, tell the
18:58
physical body that I am OK. I mean, here's the other piece
19:01
about the, the nervous system is that your nervous system,
19:05
especially when we go into that kind of threat detection system,
19:08
it does not know the difference between toast burning and the
19:12
house is on fire. So, so your threat detection
19:14
system does not know the difference between you're
19:17
running from a lion, you're running from someone that's
19:20
chasing you. And like, I'm just going out to
19:22
play a match, right? I'm just going out to play
19:24
another soccer game or another lacrosse game that I've done 100
19:27
times before. But again, this is where the
19:30
complexity comes back in because we also really have to remember
19:33
that our nervous system, our mind is making sense of, you
19:37
know, going into a match based on again, everything else we've
19:40
been through. So this is where I come back to
19:42
that example of like a kid who every single time that they've
19:45
gone out and played a soccer match, they get off the field
19:47
and their parents are screaming at them.
19:49
That is going to influence how that player is, how that
19:52
athletes mind body system is is showing up and coming and
19:56
actually responding. So yeah, I mean, I know we
19:58
started talking about kind of the navigation piece, but body
20:02
first, then we get into the mind.
20:04
Then I'll add one more layer which is that like we can't.
20:07
We can't wait until game time or we can't wait until performance
20:10
to be thinking about this. There has to be proactive work
20:14
and then there also has to be reactive.
20:16
If you're an athlete or you're a parent or coach that's listening
20:19
to this and you're like, holy crap, there's a lot of layers to
20:21
this. Like, yes, there's a lot of
20:22
layers to this, right? This is just like the work you
20:24
guys do in nutrition. Like there is no
20:26
one-size-fits-all. It's very complicated.
20:29
And that's why I'm such a proponent of like, it's not as
20:32
simple as just like a hack or a tool or a like do this or do
20:37
that. It's it has to be very
20:39
individualized and very nuanced. This is such an important topic
20:42
because the athletes that we work with, we see a lot of this
20:46
performance anxiety and we see this like over activation of
20:49
that sympathetic nervous system and it can really impact an
20:52
athlete's ability to fuel. Yeah.
20:54
Properly before a game, like we see a lot of GI upset, a lot of,
20:58
you know, some of these symptoms, yeah, anxiety really
21:01
affecting the fueling. And I know it depends, like we
21:05
talked about this, I think on every single episode that we
21:07
should name this podcast. It depends because it's so
21:10
individualized when it comes to nutrition.
21:12
Yeah, just like it's so individualized with the work
21:14
that you do. But to kind of recap and kind of
21:17
summarize this, if there's three steps, like three things that
21:22
you want athletes to take away from this, you know, maybe
21:26
introduction to the work that you do, what would those three
21:29
things be? Yeah, we're going to narrow it
21:31
down to just like pre performance anxiety, the first
21:34
thing I'm always going to tell an athlete is work the body
21:37
first. That's just me.
21:39
There's as you guys know, there's a lot of people out
21:41
there doing this work. They may say something else, but
21:44
from my perspective, my both personal and professional
21:47
experience, body first. Pre performance anxiety is not
21:51
just a thinking or a cognitive thing.
21:53
It does not live in your head. It lives in your body.
21:56
So you have to work with the body first.
21:57
Stop trying to think differently.
21:59
Stop trying to think that you're excited all of a sudden.
22:02
Stop trying to use positive affirmations.
22:06
Work with the body first, then you need to really figure out
22:09
what works for you, what supports you in working with the
22:13
body, whether that is more breath based techniques, whether
22:16
that is more movement based techniques, whether that's using
22:19
teammates, whether that's using grounding skills, It's all
22:22
individual. And here's the other thing
22:24
that's really hard is like No2 games are the same.
22:26
No2 practices are the same. So you also have to build, you
22:30
know, the second piece is about building a toolbox that works
22:33
for you, having multiple tools in your toolbox.
22:36
Because one thing I hear a lot of athletes is like, they'll go
22:38
out and they'll go, well, Emily, I did that breath work technique
22:41
and it didn't work. And I go, well, of course it
22:43
didn't work. I said, if you think that just
22:45
one time after you learn something, you're going to go
22:48
out and you're going to do it and it's going to work magically
22:50
like being human doesn't work that way.
22:52
A lot of times we have to use a skill.
22:54
We have to see how it lands and then it either helps or we've
22:57
got to move to another skill. Process of elimination.
22:59
So body first, find what works for you.
23:02
Build that toolbox of those kind of body first techniques.
23:06
And then the last thing I'm going to say is continue to do
23:10
the proactive work. I think this is a piece that's
23:12
often missing. We're not talking about enough
23:15
when it comes to pre performance anxiety is like, I think the
23:17
focus is too much on like just the reactive of like when you
23:20
get there, when you roll up to the game, when you get to
23:23
practice. But there's a lot of work that
23:25
has to be done behind the scenes and off the field.
23:29
So one of the things I'm constantly doing with players is
23:31
like I'm mapping their performances.
23:34
I'm getting them to reflect on their past performances.
23:36
I'm getting them to map themselves as a player.
23:39
I'm talking about their strengths.
23:40
I'm talking about their why behind why they play.
23:44
I'm talking about their relationships with their
23:46
parents. I'm talking about how they deal
23:48
with emotions in general. I mean, there's a lot that has
23:51
to be done in the background before you ever even get to the
23:54
performance. So again, if I just go through
23:57
those, it's body first, build a toolbox for those body first
24:00
techniques that I think those are more of the reactive.
24:03
And and then that third is like you also, if pre performance
24:07
anxiety is really showing up, it's wreaking havoc on your
24:10
day-to-day, it's impacting your performance, then there's a lot
24:13
that you need to be doing leading up to that, that
24:16
proactive kind of ongoing work about yourself, about yourself
24:20
as a performer, about how you connect with your teammates,
24:24
your coach, your parents. So I would say those three
24:26
things. I feel like there are so many
24:28
overlaps with the things that you say and what we as
24:31
dietitians do as far as making sure that like we're practicing
24:34
our fueling when it comes to game day.
24:35
And no, we can't mimic the game day experience on a practice
24:39
day, but as best we can, can we recreate that so we know what
24:42
that feels like. And then also knowing that there
24:44
are going to be things that we try and for some athletes that
24:47
might work, but for other athletes that might not work.
24:50
So we now to move on to a different intervention to see
24:52
how they respond to that as far as pregame fuel or something
24:54
like that. So everything that you're saying
24:56
kind of ties over to nutrition in some way or another.
24:59
But as a dietitian, as a support staff for an athlete, how can we
25:03
maybe recognize the signs of pregame or pre competition
25:07
anxiety and how can we help support athletes from that
25:10
standpoint? Yeah, and I think this even
25:12
because it just dawned on me, I, I don't actually think I ever
25:15
answered your first question, Jenna, which was like, how is
25:17
this showing up? One of the things we can
25:18
obviously know and have awareness around is like, OK,
25:22
yeah, how does this actually show up in people and drive?
25:24
Judson Brewer, he's an MD, does a lot in the mindfulness space.
25:27
He calls anxiety a shapeshifter. And the reason for that is that,
25:30
again, no two people are the same.
25:32
Anxiety doesn't show up in to people the same and anxiety is
25:35
actually malleable. It's flexible.
25:37
How you experience anxiety going into a first date might be
25:42
completely different to how you experience and feel anxiety
25:45
going into a match. That's the hard part.
25:47
So I think one of the things as support staff is just knowing,
25:50
having that knowledge that like it is a shapeshifter and anxiety
25:54
pre performance anxiety doesn't have a quote UN quote look.
25:57
I'll give a couple things that I would say most people
26:01
experience. Again, it's with that
26:03
sympathetic state. So things that you're going to
26:05
be experienced, our heart rate is going to go up, breath rate
26:07
is going to go up. So what might that look like?
26:09
You can actually, I mean, you know, if you're, if you're
26:11
really working with someone in person, I mean, you can actually
26:14
look at, you know, is that athlete really breathing through
26:17
their kind of secondary breathing muscles, right?
26:19
Are their shoulders and their traps kind of like, is their
26:22
breath rate really shallow as opposed to kind of this more
26:25
relaxed posture where they're able to kind of breathe through
26:27
their belly? Looking at their actual kind of
26:30
body posture is another one. And that's where it's a little
26:32
bit hard because I know like lot of players, a lot of people that
26:35
with anxiety, they'll really collapse and they'll really shut
26:37
down. I also have some people that
26:39
will feel like they're bouncing off the walls.
26:41
Obviously more physiological signs of like sweating.
26:44
Here's one that I think also is not talked about enough with
26:47
that prefrontal cortex shutdown is like, I know a lot of players
26:50
that when they get into that highly anxious state, they
26:54
cannot think, they cannot talk. Things are not coming clearly.
26:57
They feel really scatterbrained. It actually looks like they're
27:00
not paying attention. It's actually not that they're
27:02
so anxious that again that prefrontal cortex has kind of
27:05
shut down that like they're not processing, just being able to
27:08
kind of know that it is a shapeshifter.
27:10
There's a lot of things that you can be looking out for.
27:13
It is helpful having that awareness.
27:15
I think also the second piece of this is going to be continue to
27:18
validate. I think the response that we
27:20
give as support staff is really important.
27:24
More often than not, when somebody says I'm really anxious
27:28
culturally, societally, and in sport culture, the response that
27:32
most athletes are getting is don't be nervous.
27:35
You got it, no big deal. Ah, you got nothing to be
27:38
nervous about. You're good.
27:40
How do we think that makes someone who is feeling highly
27:44
anxious feel not great? Because not only is that
27:48
invalidating what they're feeling, but it's also then
27:51
making them feel wrong. So then we get that secondary
27:54
wave of emotion that is shame and Oh my God, there's something
27:57
wrong with me. Oh my God, why can't I not be
27:59
nervous? So we really need to do a better
28:02
job of simply validating. We know that validating emotions
28:06
is like one of the best things we can do for ourselves and for
28:09
other people. And simple responses from
28:11
support staff can be like, yeah, it's totally OK to be nervous.
28:14
I hear you. I'm sorry that you're nervous.
28:17
I I know what it's like to feel nervous.
28:18
It's not fun, you know, just simple things like that that can
28:21
let the athlete know that like, yeah, it's really OK because it
28:24
is OK. And then I, I think even, you
28:27
know, you guys, because so much of this is actually really
28:29
intertwined with that fueling piece, because so much of it is
28:33
physiological, is just asking simple questions like, how can I
28:36
support you? How can we work on this
28:37
together? What do you feel like would be
28:40
most helpful right now? And a lot of times, again, this
28:43
is this is a little bit tricky because when we're in that
28:45
highly anxious state, again, we have to remember that the
28:47
prefrontal cortex is not fully online.
28:49
So it can be really hard for the athlete to actually give you
28:53
what would be helpful. So then as support staff, keep
28:56
it simple. Give one or two options.
28:58
This is where I'm a huge fan of like either I can just sit next
29:01
to you or I can go get you a drink of water.
29:03
Two things, two options. And again, I'm kind of playing
29:06
around with this because I don't really know what context or
29:08
environment we're talking about, but like, keep it really simple
29:11
and just like throw something out there that maybe you feel
29:14
like would be helpful because a lot of times the athlete
29:17
literally doesn't know what would be helpful.
29:19
But even just that gesture of you kind of saying, I'm going to
29:22
do this for you because I care about you and this is real and
29:25
I'm going to validate this can help them come into regulation.
29:28
And then I think the last piece is, and although I do think
29:31
dietitians really do play a role in this, and, and this is where
29:35
I think it's really helpful to work with someone individually
29:38
is to really look at the nuances of how is impacting them
29:42
physiologically. This is where I get into the
29:44
conversation of is your pre performance anxiety basically,
29:48
and this is the window of tolerance or a lot of people
29:50
call it like the optimal zone of performance, but really it's
29:53
just a nervous system thing. And it basically just says like,
29:55
OK, when we're in regulation, we're in a zone and anxiety can
30:00
do a couple things. It can bump us out of our zone
30:02
going too far up. But I do know some people that
30:05
sometimes it will shut them down South.
30:07
What that means is it takes you below your optimal window of
30:10
performance or your window of tolerance.
30:12
So then it's just a conversation of helping them gain awareness
30:15
of like, OK, is my anxiety taking me too high above where I
30:18
want to be for performance? Or is my anxiety taking me too
30:21
low for where I want to be for performance?
30:24
Is it shutting me down South? Then it gets into kind of that
30:26
nuance and that's where, again, so much of the actual navigation
30:29
comes into play because if an athlete is too high, we're going
30:33
to use different techniques than if an athlete is too low.
30:35
So again, I think if we go back, it's for these kind of support
30:39
staff people. It's really having more
30:41
awareness around anxiety, how it shows up.
30:44
It is validating. It's really just being a present
30:47
figure, not reinforcing the message that an athlete is
30:50
wrong. It is support, like asking them
30:52
how they want to be supported, keeping it really simple in
30:54
terms of options. And then, you know, again, that
30:57
gets into more of that proactive work, which is like really
30:59
helping them figure out how it's showing up and impacting them.
31:02
This has been so good. I think there are so many pieces
31:06
that you have just shared for athletes, for parents, for
31:08
support staff, about how we can navigate this time for athletes
31:12
to help them perform their best. If people want to follow you or
31:15
find you on social media to learn more about this, how can
31:18
they do that? How can they do that?
31:19
I'm very accessible if you just type in my name.
31:21
Emily Perrin. There's not many of me, so I
31:23
think I'm Emily Perrin. LMSW is Instagram parent
31:27
Wellness and performance.com is my website.
31:30
I'm on Twitter. Emily L Perrin.
31:31
I've got a YouTube channel just I'm pretty accessible.
31:34
Emily has also been on a previous episode of the Eat More
31:36
Carbs podcast, so we're also gonna link that one below.
31:39
If you want to listen to Emily speak again, we're definitely
31:42
gonna have to have her back on because obviously she's a wealth
31:44
of knowledge and there are so many things that she can help us
31:46
with. Thank you, Emily, so much for
31:48
being on this episode. We so appreciate you being here
31:50
and for sharing all that you have.
31:51
If you have questions for Riley and I, you can find us on
31:54
Instagram. We're at the More Carbs podcast.
31:55
You can find Riley on Instagram at Riley dot Beatty dot
31:58
Nutrition, and you can find me at Jenna dot Fisher dot
32:01
nutrition. Thanks so much for listening.
32:02
Please make sure you rate, subscribe, and review.
32:04
And as always, remember to eat more carbs.