Sport Psych Saturday

Hello, Cadre. Happy Saturday. Garrett Westbrother here with the first edition of Sports Psych Saturday, where honestly, it's just thinking about it like Saturday morning cartoons, thinking about it like a fun time to talk about mental skills, talk about sports psychology and mental performance. And in these live streams, I try to go through just examples throughout the week of whether it be my personal use clients that I've seen in my private practice working with athletes, maybe athletes that I've seen in the media, just different examples of sports psychology and kind of how I think that there are lessons to pull from all those different sources.

So today I have one that I think is relevant, one that we probably all went through, and that's just the stress of moving. So this is my first video for my new apartment, and it is in Sierra Vista, Arizona. This is not just a bear room. I have just one bookshelf, my diplomas and certifications. Hi, junk food junkie. Welcome. Happy Saturday. So it's just a bear room. And that's where I'm at right now. I'm moving because I got a job recently, a full time job working with the US army on mental performance with the soldiers here at a base in Fort Huachuca in Arizona.

If anybody's ever been to this area, Sierra Vista or Tucson, it's an hour south of Tucson. For reference, if you've ever been here, please let me know. Some recommendations as I'm figuring out the area. But the story I wanted to tell today is related to moving. And I'm sure most of us, if not all of us, have moved before and dealt with that stress. And this happened yesterday, and I thought it was a perfect example of what I would talk about today. So moving, stressful. I. My fiance and I drove 25 hours in a Penske rental truck from Wisconsin to get here.

That's stressful. Packing it up was stressful. Unpacking was stressful in a good way. Nothing too bad. It's more so the sum of everything, of getting everything in here. We're young, we don't have much furniture, we're updating a lot of things. We have to get all these different things. We have to get our bed frame, we have to get our tv stand, we have to get a tv, a couch, a dining room table, nightstands, end tables, all these. All these different things. And it was just. It just weighed on us.

After three days of moving, driving, all these different things. Yesterday, her and I were just exhausted and I could feel. Feel my brain buzzing because it was so exhausted and just run down with everything. Maybe you've experienced that, whether it be moving, but also just in general after an overwhelming day, you know, that feeling of physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion. Just wanted to take a break. So what I did was practice what I preach. And that is I simply just one, two, took the perspective of something I've talked about recently here on the SAP of being where your feet are.

So rather than thinking about all these things just stacked on top of each other, I looked at it rather than vertically where it comes down and the weight is on me. I took them one step at a time and took it more horizontally of I have all these things to do and I'm just going to pick this one thing, whether it be alright, I'm just going to focus on getting this thing from target or I'm just going to focus on putting this one picture up on the wall and then I'll go to the next step. But I'm going to be where my feet are when I do that one thing.

So that was one thing, just perspective wise, that I thought was helpful. And then another thing was simply taking a breath. You can call it meditation, you can call it mindfulness, but I just literally laid down on my bed and took ten mindful breaths, meaning I just took one deep inhale and exhale. Just kind of settle me into the space, sink down. And then after that, just counting each inhale and exhale as one, two. And then I did that all the way up to 20, so counted as ten mindful breaths. It took maybe two minutes and it was probably one of the best breathing sessions I've ever done in my life because I felt amazing afterwards and it was just awesome.

And I think, again, there has a lot of parallels for anybody on here because probably all moved. I know some people have moved recently, like Luke, he was moving recently, so he probably understands the pain and the struggle of it. But whether you've done that process or just any overwhelming day, anything that's stressing you out is doing that. Junk food junkie has a good. Okay, so Corbin Burns, I'm a Brewers fan, so I'm hopefully, I'm hoping this isn't too painful to read. Funny you're saying the stress of moving.

I just listened to a podcast where Corbin Burns said being traded to Baltimore, to the Baltimore Orioles, wasn't as stressful as finding a place for his family to live in the Baltimore area. Since it shows professional athletes, it's stressed off the field. Absolutely. People just see, especially now with NFL free agency and the start of spring training for baseball and just in general, professional athletes, you see the big contract, you think, oh, they, you know, life is so easy for them. They have to figure out how to move their families.

There's always stories of professional athletes who, you know, get, are on twelve different teams. I'm trying to think of examples of that. I think Josh McCown, Ryan Fitzpatrick in the NFL, those two quarterbacks were on like 14 different teams and. Yeah, that's a good point. Just having the stress of moving a family. Thankfully, I'm very grateful. Again, the perspective of it's just my fiance and I, we don't have children right now or any, any pets, even though we love a dog. So it's just two people.

So again, show gratitude of it could always be worse and it could always be a little bit more stressful in those areas. But I think any overwhelming day, if you're moving, you know, in the, in the near future, you know, you have an overwhelming day, be where your feet are, pause and take a breath. Those are my two things that I felt really helped me and that's what all about what these sports like Saturdays are is how I use the mental skills in my personal life, how I've maybe seen them with athletes in the media, whether that be Corbin burns, junk food junkie.

That's a great, great example. And also just athletes that I see in my, in my private practice, mental stride performance where talking and meet with individual athletes and teams about these types of things. So any examples from those, be more than happy to share on these lovely Saturdays. Thank you all for, for joining me on this nice Saturday. It's nice in Arizona here. Happy to move here, happy to get this first video done in Arizona. And I look forward to seeing you all a little bit more. Hopefully there's more stuff in the room behind me next time I see you.