Spurs Anxiety Problem
Spurs Anxiety Problem
A fun way to get your young children into birds or to simply spend time with them doing something together...
Is to make and hang some simple homemade bird feeders.
Bird feeders, water stations are simple to make from plastic bottles...
While you teach your child practical skills at the same time.
All you'll need for the simplest feeder is:
Some bird seed...
Gelatine,,,
A bowl to mix in...
A spoon...
Boiling water...
Some shaped cake cutters moulds...
Parchment paper or baking tray...
A needle...
Some string or twine.
Tip: Make it fun, find cutters in shapes they like such as trains, hearts etc.
First we're going to create our gelatine mixture.
Mix 1 pack of gelatine with a quarter cup of boiling water and mix until the gelatine powder is completely dissolved.
Now add 3/4 of a cup of birdseed and mix together.
It won't solidify right away, but make sure you mix it long enough that the gelatine is well incorporated.
Obviously you can double or triple the recipe for bigger batches.
Next it's time to fill the moulds, cake cutters (silicone moulds work best).
Lay down parchment paper or use a baking tray.
Put your moulds on top.
Scoop out your mixture with a spoon and spread it in thin layers pressing down firmly.
Make sure you pack the seed in really tightly and fill all the corners.
Once your moulds are filled you'll need to leave them for a few hours to harden or pop them in the fridge.
You can do this bit before or after you have hardened them.
Thread a needle with your string or twine.
Press through the middle of your bird seed mould.
Tie off and you are ready to hang your bird feeder.
Your young child learns something practical.
Introduces them to making things and the kitchen.
You're doing something together (ideal for a rainy day).
You are stimulating practicality and creativity.
You are connecting them with outdoors and nature.
If you are on benefits or a low wage, this and making bird feeders or water feeders is simple.
Just make them recycling what you would normally throw away.
We'll make those in future articles.
Right, now let's turn to football.
So today we'll go a little further.
I watched the cricket recently, India against England in Chennai.
The pitch was unplayable at times.
The ball was spitting,,,
Rearing at the batsman...
Or turning so sharply the batsman had no chance.
For you non cricketers let me explain it from personal experience.
A bowler bowls the ball and you are going to play a forward defensive shot.
Around 53mph (83kph) for a slow bowler...
Around 90mph (144kph) for a fast bowler.
That means, from your stance (sideways to the bowler)...
You are going to stride forward with your left leg (if you are right handed)...
You will bring your bat to rest alongside your leg...
The ball will hit your bat 2 feet off the ground...
So below your knee.
Not much danger, right...
As you wear pads so if the ball hits them it isn't going to hurt.
OK, so what if...
The same speed of ball...
Hits the pitch in the same place...
But this time leaps over your head?
What's the next one going to do?
When is the next leaper going to arrive?
That uncertainty makes you hesitant if you have a weak mind...
You are worrying which make your decision making slower and more uncertain...
That makes the stroke you play late.
The same problem applied to football and all walks of life.
Davinson Sanchez suffers from it clearly.
A batsman will have to struggle through it...
Before he can then hopefully go on to make a major contribution for his side.
All players suffer from it at one time or another...
On other occasions, when in form, when confident, batting appears easy.
Anxiety
- 16th century: Doctors first identify the adrenals, small organs attached to the top of the kidneys.
- Mid 18th century: Doctors begin to see patterns in patients with tumours on adrenals - patients with poorly working adrenals had low blood pressure, fatigue, and fainting.
- 1890's: Doctors began injecting adrenaline into animals - gave instantaneous jumps in blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration.
When a person is under extreme stress, adrenaline helps the function of organs.
It increases the output of the heart...
Pumps more oxygen-rich blood full of nutrients to the rest of the body...
Increases blood flow to the muscles...
Opens the lungs to breathe in more oxygen.
Paul McCartney, Ella Fitzgerald, Luciano Pavarotti, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler, and Barbra Streisand all suffered severe onstage anxiety.
In 1981, during a concert in Pittsburgh, Carly Simon suffered an on stage anxiety attack.
She asked audience members to come onstage to rub her arms to help calm her down.
She cancelled a tour, and didn’t sing again in public for 7 years.
Footballers are humans just like you...
Just like Carly Simon.
They all suffer the same anxiety you do.
Anxiety is an act of mutiny by the mind against the body.
Faced with an anxious situation...
Some will crumble...
Some will relish the situation and excel.
Some feel more positive, more energized, less uncomfortable.
Which would you rather have playing for you?
What would be best to do with those crumbling from anxiety?
Throw them on the scrapheap...
And spend millions more on a replacement...
Or spend under £50,000 to employ a psychologist to help the player handle anxiety better?
People with low self-esteem have simply succumbed to anxiety.
There are countless studies that show people who are excited outperform those who are anxious, nervous.
University of Rochester professor Jeremy Jamieson
did a series of studies on reappraisal...
A technique for individuals to mentally redefine anxiety...
To help them overcome it.
One was to have students, ahead of a maths exam, read a statement that anxiety can help performance, so not to worry if they felt it.
Students who read the statement scored 55 points higher on average.
A month later they recorded on average 65 points higher.
The basis is that anxiety is a sign of excitement.
The conclusion of his tests was:
"Don’t obsess over calming down. Tell yourself the sweaty palms, the racing heart are positive signs, they signify excitement.
"Tell yourself you’re lucky to
be here and to have this opportunity to prove how good you are."
Isn't that exactly how players react in a Cup Final, some embrace the opportunity, some succumb to the occasion.
Jose Mourinho demonstrated this mental redefining technique when the Moose asked him how much pressure he felt going into a particular tie, with the recent run of results.
This was when we were on a losing run.
He replied he didn't feel any pressure, he felt responsibility, which is a completely different thing and is much better than pressure.
He continued that he thought this is about responsibility, ambition and motivation, not about pressure.
Finnish sports psychologist Yuri Hanin conducted research in which he proposed a model called the
Individualized Zones of Optimal Functioning, or IZOF.
Hanin used the model to analyse what emotions competitors were feeling before
good or bad performances...
He then creates a model of how a competitor wants to feel before an event.
Significant results have been seen using these techniques with...
The San Diego SWAT
team...
Olympic athletes...
Wall Street traders...
And a myriad of other occupations.
There isn't any doubt psychological and physiological preparation works.
Other tests have shown that simply calming down...
Without associating the success emotions...
Ahead of a performance...
Actually reduces performance.
It is somewhat shocking that while coaches spend many hours helping players learn how to practice
and perform...
None of their coaching focuses on developing a smart, effective psychological pre-performance routine.
Every Spurs game is an opportunity...
An opportunity to perform your best...
If you have mentally prepared properly.
Our players do not prepare mentally properly...
They are not undertaking the mental training that they so clearly need.
Instead of improving the players mentally we will spend in the transfer market and keep our fingers crossed that the players we buy have better mentalities.
We'll leave it to chance again.
Perhaps I'll go further into that in another post.
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