Improving Your Mental Game
A Sports Psychiatry Pocket Guide for Athletes, Coaches, and Athletic Trainers
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Sports psychiatry uses psychological, neuroscientific, and medical knowledge to address optimal performance and well-being of athletes. The “mental game” refers not only to a mind that has been conditioned through mental skills training for optimal performance, but also to a broader mindset that includes an awareness of psychosocial issues and mental conditions that potentially impact performance.
The pocket guide is a practical, concise, and convenient handbook for athletes, coaches, trainers, and other sports medicine clinicians with topics including:
1) Core psychological techniques for improving athletic performance (e.g. imagery, goal setting, self-talk, relaxation);
2) Tips and exercises for managing focus, negative self-talk, pressure, daily learning & growth commitment, self-defeating distractions, fear, motivation, riding the bench, taking responsibility, controlling emotions, self-belief & confidence, trust & consistency, and pregame warm-up;
3) Psychosocial issues impacting performance (e.g. team cohesion, managing team conflict, coping with injury, end of career issues);
4) Mental conditions associated with the competitive sports environment (e.g. anxiety, depression, substance abuse, concussion, eating disorders).
In addition, information on banned substances (of which many are psychoactive), athletes with disabilities, and brain health maintenance (e.g. sleep and nutrition for optimal brain & neuromuscular function) is included.
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About the Book
Sports psychiatry uses psychological, neuroscientific, and medical knowledge to address optimal performance and the well-being of athletes. The “mental game” refers not only to a mind that has been conditioned through mental skills training for optimal performance, but also to a broader mindset that includes an awareness of psychosocial issues and mental conditions that potentially impact optimal performance.
In Improving Your Mental Game, author Dr. Pamela Smith presents a practical, concise, and convenient pocket guide geared toward college and professional athletes, coaches, and athletic trainers. It covers a host of topics including:
• core psychological techniques for improving athletic performance such as imagery, goal setting, self-talk, and relaxation;
• tips and exercises for managing focus, negative self-talk, pressure, daily learning and growth, commitment, self-defeating distractions, fear, motivation, riding the bench, taking responsibility, controlling emotions, self-belief and confidence, trust and consistency, and pregame warm-up;
• psychosocial issues impacting performance such as team cohesion, managing team conflict, coping with injury, and end of career issues;
• mental conditions associated with the competitive sports environment like anxiety, depression, substance abuse, concussion, and eating disorders;
• banned substances;
• athletes with disabilities; and
• brain health maintenance – i.e. sleep & nutrition for optimal brain & neuromuscular function.
About the Author
Pamela Smith, MD, completed specialty training in psychiatry at New York–Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell and later served on the faculty of the UCLA Medical School, the staff of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, and the visiting faculty of the UCLA Department of Psychology. Her experience has included externships with sports medicine practitioners and a practice providing clinical interventions for amateur and professional athletes and performing artists. Dr Smith has also coordinated projects in developing countries (in association with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the International Medical Corps) utilizing sport as a means for improving individual and community psychosocial health and development.