Welcome! Tuesday, November 5, 2024 is the date for the Suffolk Zone’s Mini Conference at Samoset Middle School, 51 School Street, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779. I’ll be doing a workshop in Session 4: 11:30- 12:25 entitled: The World Health Organization’s Mental Health Skills for Everyone: The Self-Help Plus Program. We’ll train in Grounding and other skills  and look at applying them in the classroom and in your favorite sport.  We will also practice problem-solving and making decisions based on our values. I’m looking forward to seeing you there! Art Arthur L. Popp, Ph.D.
Licensed NYS Psychologist

Hi, and Greetings! Tuesday November 7 is the date for the Suffolk Zone’s Mini Conference at Sachem East High School, 177 Granny Road in Farmingville, 11738. I’ll be doing two related back-to-back workshops. Both are in rooms B122.

Session 3: 10:00-10:55

Basics of Mental Well-Being for All from the World Health Organization (W.H.O).

 We’ll look at core skills, train in Grounding or Brief Meditation and look at applying them in the classroom, on teams, and to your favorite sport. These skills are from the W.H.O.’s group program, “Self-Help Plus,” and its parallel for individuals, “Doing What Matters in Times of Stress.”

Session 4: 11:30-12:25

The W.H.O.’s “Self-Help Plus” Program- a Deep Dive into Values Clarification.”

We’ll go into depth with practical applications of Values,  Values Clarification and Making Decisions. This will continue our exploration of the mental skills from the World Health Organization’s “Self-Help Plus” that is used around the world. I’m looking forward to seeing you there! Art Arthur L. Popp, Ph.D.
Licensed NYS Psychologist

A note about my private practice - Besides general psychotherapy, I’m also working with sports-related matters, such as performance anxiety and symptoms of depression.  Almost all teams in the major sports leagues have a behavioral health professional on board to teach core mental skills to improve effectiveness and avoid mental illness. NBA teams are required to have a full-time mental health specialist according to the Players’ Association contract.  Below are articles on the Mets and the  New York Giants. You can reach me at the “Contact” tab on my website, www.arthurpopp.com.

Dunleavy, R. (2022, October 21). Giants’ sports psychologist Dr. Lani Lawrence integral in team’s renaissance. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2022/10/21/giants-sports-psychologist-integral-in-teams-renaissance/

Wagner, J.(2022, June24) For the Mets, deep breaths, a little chatter and a lot of wins. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/sports/baseball/pete-alonso-mets-breathing.html

Now to the S.M.A.R.T. guidelines and goals.

In our last article we talked about a basketball player aiming to hit 70% of her foul shots.  Using the SMART guidelines will help. Here they are:

• S - Specific - Can you imagine seeing this. Yes, we can visualize our player hitting 7 out of 10 foul shots.
• M - Measurable - Certainly. We have a clear number in mind here.
• A - Achievable - Can our player reach this goal?  If we agree she can, game on!
• R - Relevant - Hitting free throws certainly is relevant!
• T - Time sensitive - This is one of the more important guidelines. If she strives to reach this goal by the fourth week of the season, she is more likely to reach 70% by that date.

A Coaching Point - Keep in mind that these are guidelines only.  Don’t let them get you or your players in a bind and frustrated! An example is a pickleball player we’ll call Cindy. Cindy is - trying to increase the number of  shots she hits down the middle between her two opponents.  It’s tough to Measure unless you have a camera  to catch all the action. Then, there are judgment calls about what is in the middle!  Yes, the goal is achievable. Is it relevant? Certainly, hitting down the middle, and preferably low to the opponents’ feet, is definitely relevant.  What about time-sensitive? Yes, Cindy can aim to do better at hitting down the middle within 3 weeks time.  Again, we have to keep in mind that Cindy is playing pickleball in part for the challenge and for recreation. She’s got a full-time job and a family.  Plus, if she sets this goal in early April, spring showers can get in the way of getting in practice time and playing! For sure, goal-setting and using the S.M.A.R.T. guidelines are not easy tasks. We benefit from these skills when we treat them like an art –  something we work on and cultivate over time. Enjoy the summer! I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Suffolk Zone’s (NYS-AHPERD) November 7^th Conference where I’ll be presenting on a sports psychology topic.

Tuesday, November 8th

Our Suffolk Zone Conference of the NYS AHPERD  is on Tuesday, November 8^th at Ward Melville High School in East Setauket.  I’ll be doing two presentations in the school library that day.

• Session IV, 11:30-12:25 – Sports Psychology Applied to Teaching H.S. P.E. Students and Athletes
• Session V, 12:30-1:25 – Self Help Plus, the World Health Organization’s stress management program, applied to sports.

Also, meet me in the Vendor Area.  I’ll be there in the morning.

Friday, November 18th

On November 18^th I’ll be presenting at the NYS AHPERD STATE CONFERENCE at Turning Stone Convention Center near Syracuse.

• 7:30am/Birch Room – I’ll be leading a discussion on our personal values and their role in planning retirement.
• 12:05pm/Oak Room – My second talk is on how basic stress management skills can benefit any athlete or team.  We'll be talking about the Self Help Plus Program from the World Health Organization.

I hope you can join me this spring for three presentations I’ll be doing. March 16^th at 4:00 PM. – Selecting a Social-Emotional Learning Program: Key Factors (virtual)  for school psychologists of the Suffolk County Psychological Association as well as anyone who is interested. Contact me if you’d like to attend. I’ll send you the link. March 25 at the Nassau Zone Conference of NYS AHPERD at Adelphi University,
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Skills in Varsity & Youth Sports. NYS AHPERD emails will have the pertinent information. May 6^th- I’ll be participating on a panel with Drs. Deena Abbe and Greg Haggerty on Building a Better Athlete: Using Psychology to Help Athletes, for the Suffolk County Psychological Association (SCPA). Again, everyone is welcome. Here’s the link.  On that page the workshops are listed along the right side. We’re May 6^th. Here’s our follow-up to the December 2021 blog about the Learning & Performance climate. What I’ll do here is suggest a visual to use in making the point that our goal is to get our players in an optimal place or “frame of mind.” I’ll also list four additional steps to build your team’s learning and performance climate. You can access the December 2021 blog here. Let’s take an example.  Angie is a fictitious player on our girls’ flag football team. Let’s say she joined the team in her 9^th grade year, and showed a lot of promise. Angie is a bit shy. As a new team member, she seemed to often be “treading lightly,” as if she didn’t want to make a mistake or draw attention to herself. She was athletic and had done well, but seemed  anxious. How can we help her? First, we use the two heads graphic that we described last time and is inserted just below.  On the left side is a player’s head full of thoughts and worries.  On the right side, that player has “dealt” with those concerns in a variety of ways, at least for the time that she is playing.  As a result, she can focus better. Another way to help get this idea across is through the Yerkes-Dodson Inverted U-curve. Yes, it is a “mouthful.” It relates motivation and drive to performance.  Motivation and drive can also include anxiety. This is a teaching device that has been used for decades.  Here it is: On the chart the left (vertical or y-axis) is performance or how we do in a practice or game. The horizontal axis (x-axis) is motivation or drive. If we move along the x-axis just a bit, we can then  go vertically until we reach the curve. By then going horizontally back to the left to the y-axis, we see the “Performance” level which isn’t too high. Once our motivation or drive (x-axis) is in a moderate to fairly high range (space with the diagonal lines), we’re at a high level on the curve. When we go horizontally to the y-axis, the corresponding point on the y-axis is near or close to the top of the y-axis or absissa- maximum performance.  However, and here’s a key point- if Angie  is too driven or overly anxious,  performance( the far right on the x-axis) begins to drop off. That optimal level of drive is also known as "flow" (Kaufman, Glass, & Pineau, 2018, pp. 48-59) or “being in the zone.” I’ve often heard athletes from the 2022 Winter Games talking about being in a place where they’re having fun.  This is the optimal level of the curve (with the diagonal lines). So, we can help our athletes get to a comfortable place, a place “in the zone” or a point of “flow” by:

1. Using the “Two-Heads” graphic from the previous blog (Dec. 12, 2021)  on the learning and performance climate. Also, we can use the inverted curve described above to decrease “brain clutter.”

Also from the previous blog we can:

2. Teach living one play or one action at a time, just executing what comes next without biases or thinking about  the past or the future (including the scoreboard.) It’s the quality of what we do  moment to momentthat counts. Coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide (6 national titles, and one with L.S.U.) describes this “Process” approach at about the 2:25 mark of a video we showed in our first blog.  I've inserted it again here.

3. Something that naturally fits with a process approach is paying attention to what we can control, and leaving to the side what we can’t.  There is little to no value in  ruminating about what we can’t control.
4. As coaches, we can regularly use a lot of reinforcement. We described this, along with a video of Coach Ted Newsome doing it in our July 30 blog, “The Process, Part 3.”  Here’s the link to that video:

5. Regularly do exercises to build focusing skills.  We’ll talk about these in future blogs.

Through the steps above we were able to help Angie build her skills and her confidence over the course of the season. She is better equipped to make a substantial contribution to the team. I'm looking forward to your comments. See you next time!

References

Kaufman, K., Glass, C. and Pineau, T. (2018) Mindful sport performance enhancement. Washington, D.C. :The American Psychological Association.