Building a mentally strong foundation

Goals of this module:

  1. Provide evidence of the relationship between sleep and both sport performance and emotional health
  2. Learn the power of practicing getting to a focused state on a daily basis
  3. Discuss the importance of team work and goal setting in providing a solid base for emotional management

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.”

Viktor Frankl

Fueling the machine: Sleep is for champions

Your body needs to sleep in order to be in the best shape to perform. Getting good sleep improves speed, accuracy and endurance. Good quality sleep also helps your emotional state, making it easier to handle stressful events. But it can be hard to prioritize sleep when you’re balancing school, sports and social commitments.

“Sleep is extremely important to me—I need to rest and recover in order for the training I do to be absorbed by my body.”

Usain Bolt
Photo: Bicycle maintenance

Frequently asked questions:

In general teens need 8-9.5 hours of sleep a night. The timing of sleep matters too, and your body does best when you get up and go to bed at the same time every day. Athletes may need even more than this (see below for “Is more sleep better?”)

Athletic performance drops from 98% accuracy with 7 hours of sleep to 50% with only 6 hours. Maximum bench press drops 20 pounds after 4 days of restricted sleep.

Yes! Studies have found that extending sleep to 10 hours decreases reaction time and increases accuracy across sports.

Yes—this can be a big problem. Your body likes to get up and go to sleep at the same time and it releases chemicals to help you fall asleep and wake up. When these times get thrown off you don’t feel well.

Yes---getting good quality sleep lowers your injury risk.

How can you get good sleep?

Going to bed 20 minutes earlier can make a difference, and having an easy win can help motivate you.

Our bodies like to be on a schedule so they can release chemicals that help us go to sleep and wake up. Going to bed and getting up at the same time every day can have a huge impact on how rested you feel.

Go outside in the morning if possible and turn off overhead lights at night.

Teach your body that it’s time to sleep by using a routine. Try taking a shower, listening to music or doing some stretching.

If it’s taking more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, get out of bed and do something quiet and calm, like reading a book or listening to music. Try to avoid social media or news.
Photo: Restful bedside table

Getting to a focused state

In order to perform at your best as an athlete, you need to be able to make rapid decisions in this moment, and this is best done in a focused alert state---what some call “flow.” When you’re in a flow state, you’re only paying attention to what’s happening in the moment, whether it be catching the ball, grabbing the baton or shooting the basket. Replaying the past or worrying about the future make it hard to perform at your best because they take up needed brain power. But getting to this level of deep focus just doesn’t happen, it requires steady practice of working towards this level of mental skill.

“Mental fitness means presence. No matter what I’m doing, my attention is locked. It means awareness. I can see my surroundings with clarity and I can calculate my options.”

Le Bron James
Photo: Planning football moves

Frequently asked questions

The best way to do this is by practicing focusing on a daily basis using breathing techniques. Even very brief practice (2-5 minutes) can make a big difference and can help you start to learn how to settle your mind so that you can perform at your best.

It would be like learning how to ride a bike while being chased by a tiger. Getting to a focused state takes practice, and you get better at it with time. You want to practice when the stakes are low.

There are lots of different ways to fit breathing practice into your routine as a team. Some teams like to do 2-5 minutes of breathing before the start of practice, as a way to transition from the socializing and warming up to the more serious pursuit of training. Others like to use breathing practice as a transition between different drills, or prior to starting a scrimmage.

Definitely. Once you become good at getting to a focused state using breathing, ...

Building trust

  • All coaches want their team to be successful, but what makes a winning team? TRUST. Athletes need to trust themselves, each other, and you as a coach. You need to all be working towards the same goal.
  • Athletes who value team goals will choose the path that benefits the team over their own interests. 

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships."

Michael Jordan
Football team

Being able to trust each other. Athletes need to trust you as a coach and believe you have the same goals as they do. Athletes also need to trust each other and believe their teammate will back them up even when things are hard. Athletes need to trust themselves that they have what it takes to be a champion.

Shooting for team goals changes the way you think as a player---you will choose the path that will benefit the team, even if it is not the path that would most benefit you as an individual (for example, passing to a teammate rather than making a shot which has less likelihood of scoring).

Take the time to develop team goals:

  • Hold a team meeting and start by talking about what you hope to achieve that season.
  • You can set a big goal (like winning the championship), but then you need to break that goal down into smaller goals.
  • Spend time to figure out everyone’s role in working towards your goals.

Many team bonding activities can help develop trust, even simple ones. Any team trust activity needs to include: 1) facing a challenge as a team 2) being solvable as a team. We’ll give you more details in the last module.

As athletes learn their role and experience themselves getting better with daily practice, they will gain confidence and start to trust themselves.