Dr Ben Chell, the lead psychologist for the GBR Olympic sailing team, explains how "nerves are just our body's normal response to stressful situations."
Raise Your Game: What do you do?
Dr Ben Chell: I prepare sailors for competition and provide them with skills and techniques that will help them perform consistently and effectively under high stress.
RYG: What techniques do you use?
BC: I follow a simple pyramid structure to ensure that I am involved in every aspect of an athletes training.
- YOU - Working on your own mental toughness.
- TEAM - Working effectively in your individual teams.
- ENVIRONMENT - Making sure that you are comfortable in training and competing.
- CULTURE - Making sure that the managers, coaches and sailors themselves share the same professional belief.
Dealing with nerves
- Nerves are just our body's normal response to stressful situations.
- Feelings such as butterflies, shortness of breath and clammy hands are due to the effects of adrenaline in our body.
- Tell yourself "This is adrenaline, this is normal. It just means I am ready to perform."
- Don't see nerves as something that is negative.
Remove the escape route
Profile
Name:
Dr Ben Chell
Occupation:
Lead psychologist for the GBR Olympic sailing team
Education & career:
- Access Course, local Technical College
- Sports Science degree, Chichester University
- PhD, specialising in severe performance loss in competitive sport
- Psychology Consultant, Sheffield Hallam University
- Due to part of our brain called the 'limbic system' we sometimes let our emotions take over which makes us feel like we want to run away from situations that are threatening to us.
- Say to yourself "I have chosen to be here, I want to be here and this is an opportunity, not a threat. My life is not in danger."
Rehearse
- Rehearse the situation in your mind. The situation then becomes familiar rather than new.
- To build your confidence, think of your best performances in the past.
- This is great for learning new skills and speeding up learning. You can watch a video of someone doing that skill and then rehearse in your mind how you would do it.
Don't mix the goal with the dream
- The goal is to be the best that you can be on that particular day. The dream is the overall outcome of that goal.
- By focusing back on the goal and away from the dream you can just think about the here and now.
- Put the situation into perspective. You can only do your best.
Improving your mental toughness
- Be aware of how you are feeling. Check in with yourself.
- Focus on something that you are doing well in the here and now.
- Accept the situation because then you can act.
- It is a lifestyle change. Make sure that you apply this mental toughness to all areas of your life.
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