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March 5, 2024
Well-being in sports has become a more important topic in recent years. Curling has the power to improve the mental health of athletes and the general public, but it’s also important to stay healthy while training and competing.
Kyle Puckett, Paralympic Program Director for Curling Canada, is a leading expert in the field and supports wheelchair curlers across the country. He shared some of his top tips for athletes aiming to be the best version of themselves.
he explains:
There are three basic needs that motivate us. These are autonomy, competence, and relationships. For wheelchair athletes, the sport and wheelchair curling offer an opportunity to regain some of the autonomy they perhaps felt they had lost.
You will be more motivated to pursue situations where you can demonstrate your abilities and receive praise. When you see athletes discovering and succeeding in a sport like wheelchair curling, it can bring a great deal of health and happiness into their lives.
We are motivated to connect with others; Finding a group of people that we feel connected to and something bigger than just being on our ownn.
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a sport with as much community and connection as wheelchair curling.
1. Dreams come true through teamwork
What separates the world’s best players from others is their ability to contribute to the success and performance of their teammates.
When you spend so much time focusing on self-improvement, you begin to develop habits of training, thinking, and responding that protect and optimize you, but that can actually work against others. There is also. In some cases, other people may be your teammates.
When you think about the best wheelchair curlers in the world, they not only excel when needed, but by understanding their teammates’ specific needs and preferences, they create an environment and atmosphere in which their teammates can thrive. I am. Teammates understand how to provide appropriate feedback, approach shots, and prepare their thinking to manage shots to the best of their ability.
2. Self-love, not self-hatred
Great curlers learn to be great because they actually strive for perfection when they make mistakes, and sometimes it leads to a ton of self-criticism. They think they should be self-critical when they make a mistake, but at some point they realize that it’s actually doing more harm than good.
The real gateway to improvement is not to become harder on yourself and become more self-critical. In reality, it’s about starting to be more compassionate with yourself and recognizing that you’re working hard and that you need to give yourself a break.
Having some self-kindness can actually increase their resilience, increase their satisfaction, and help them find more fulfillment in what they do. It will not only improve their health, but also improve their performance. They will put more energy into training and pursuing high performance.
American researcher Christine Neff lists three elements for achieving self-compassion. Mindfulness, self-kindness, and common humanity.
First you need to recognize your self-critical thoughts. The wheelchair curler has a shot that is pretty easy to make, but he misses it. Well, it’s that moment where I realize that I’m thinking, “Wow, you’re brutal, you should have called it, a better player would have called it.” ”. It’s about being aware of it in the moment, so you can catch yourself slipping into self-critical behavior and change your inner narrative.
The second step is to listen to that inner voice, be critical, and transform that voice into something more supportive and constructive. It’s no different than saying something to yourself that you would probably say to a teammate or best friend.
Common humanity means you are not alone. you change it to: inhale, in fact, you’re a really great athlete and, in fact, one of the best wheelchair curlers in the world. You’re not the only one who took a hit today. At this moment, there are probably other great athletes shooting flash shots around you in his five sheets, but why? Because this is really hard, we all Because we’re doing our best. ”
3. Develop a life outside of sports
In general, athletes who identify almost exclusively with their sport are more likely to experience pressure and anxiety during big games than other athletes with a more balanced identity.
Not only are you a world-class wheelchair curler, but you are also a mother of three, a business owner, a daughter and sister, a respected member of your community, and, coincidentally, a wheelchair curler. Become, well, it’s not your full identity that’s threatened in a world championship moment, because it’s actually just a small part of who you are.
4. The future can be scary, so ignore it.
When people are really nervous, their feelings of anxiety tend to arise from future-oriented thoughts, thinking about what’s going to happen in the next shot, rather than focusing on what’s within their control. for a moment.
Five. Good mental health is important for athletes and organizations
Even for people who don’t suffer from mental illness, especially high-performance athletes, there are moments when moderate to severe hardship can actually reduce their mental well-being considerably, and in some cases, it can even be significantly reduced. there is. It could be a result of training or performance issues, or even potential overtraining, and you start to move towards burnout territory.
What’s really important is to provide proper education to athletes and help them better understand what mental health is. By doing so, you will be able to better determine which parts of your mental health actually need to be managed and supported, and what those parts are. Situations and triggers that can threaten their mental health.
At Curling Canada, we prioritize mental health in all decision-making as part of our National Wheelchair Curling Program. From creating annual training plans, to creating training camp schedules, to world championship participation and activity schedules, all of these decisions are made in collaboration with athletes to ensure their needs are met. I’ll make it. And because they know themselves best, they actually help co-create the strategies and protocols that we put in place.
Creating an open and safe space where these conversations occur regularly is the best way to prevent any kind of challenges or strains in an athlete’s mental health and wellness. As coaches, program coordinators, and directors, I think we need to spend more time thinking about the impact of competition on the mental health of athletes.
The more we can help athletes identify those challenges, the more they will feel empowered to take responsibility and take action to support themselves.
SD Biosensor on TikTok In collaboration with the World Curling Federation during the World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2024, XSearch the hashtag on , Instagram, Facebook, and Weibo #WWhCC and #wheelchair curling
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