Why Your Athletes Aren't Performing.

Hello folks 👋🏼,

First of all, I would like to welcome the 329 new members to our little family! Neuro Athletics is now over 17,500 members strong. It makes me so proud to see so many people interested in the medicine and science behind high performance.

Today, we will take a peep into the neurobiology of stress and athletic burnout, but first 👇🏼

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Based on your feedback, we are excited to announce the launch of our exclusive, members-only newsletter.

Our premium membership includes:

• Well-researched and in-depth manuscripts that focus on the latest studies in neuroscience we found most interesting, with notes, comments and related links.

• Access to the private Q&A Louisa does with her guests that are not published on the public podcast feed.

Neuro Athletes,

Underperformance in athletes is often associated with physical stress. However, the same can be said about psychological stress. While athletes make it to the field with their strength, speed, and endurance, elite athletes who make it to the podium rely on more than just their physical prowess; they practice what the attention researchers called the “quiet eye” — a focused gaze that allows athletes to filter distractions while analyzing and planning their next move. Whether you’re able to perform the “quiet eye” or choke in competition depends on how you deal with psychological stress.

Primer

Stress involves two-way communication between the brain and the cardiovascular, immune, and other systems via neural and endocrine mechanisms. Beyond the “flight-or-fight” response to acute stress, there are events in daily life that produce a type of chronic stress and lead over time to wear and tear on the body (“allostatic load”). Yet, hormones associated with stress protect the body in the short-run and promote adaptation (“allostasis”). The brain is a target of stress, and the hippocampus was the first brain region, besides the hypothalamus, to be recognized as a target of glucocorticoids. Stress and stress hormones produce both adaptive and maladaptive effects on this brain region throughout the life course.

Psychological stress affects the outcome of performance. These effects can be seen in the cases of two elite tennis players: Jana Novotná and Serena Williams. In 1993, Novotná was leading the match against Steffi Graf at 4-1 in the third set of the Wimbledon finals. The Grand Slam title seemed to be within her grasp when she choked and her double fault and a miss sent the title away.  

In 2003, Williams was at the losing end at 5-2 in the final set of the 2003 Australian Open semifinal. Somehow, she managed to escape the jaws of defeat by saving two match points before winning the next five games.

On the verge of victory and defeat, both players were experiencing psychological stress; but the only difference that led to their respective outcome? — Williams managed to put a brake on her stress levels before it got in her head, and proceeded to use the quiet eye approach. 

The Neurology of Stress: An Overview

While stress is notorious for its tendency to cause anger and nervousness, it’s not entirely bad. In fact, short-term stress is a system that helps us improve immunity, focus, and mobilize other systems in the brain and body. 

During a stress response, our body becomes activated as more acetylcholine (ACh), a neurochemical that helps us focus and move our muscles, is released. The ACh then triggers the release of epinephrine (or adrenaline) which increases the heart rate and blood flow in the body. This primes us to narrow our vision to focus on the target and improve our ability to analyze and plan our next move. 

When the body is in an activated state, there’s an increased need for oxygen supply and carbon dioxide (CO2) elimination which is controlled by your breathing. Oftentimes, however, the breathing pattern becomes dysregulated, particularly when you’re anxious, which results in low oxygen and high CO2 levels in your bloodstream.

You see, your body has to keep the CO2 concentration in your lungs low so that CO2 will diffuse out of your blood into your lungs and not the other way around. In order to do that, you have to breathe out or exhale. The excessive CO2 in your body is what causes you to jitter and lose focus, thus hindering your performance. 

Let’s sum it up 

• The adult brain is a malleable organ and adapts structurally and functionally to experiences including those which are stressful and potentially deleterious.

• These changes do not necessarily constitute “damage” but may, nevertheless, be long lasting, and it is their spontaneous reversal or reversal by behavioral and pharmaceutical means that may be the key to treatment of anxiety, mood, and other stress-related behavioral disorders.

• Therefore, psychological and neuronal stress, and not just physical stress, can cause athlete burnout. 

• You can help fix this problem to be able to perform better, think faster and produce better results on game day.

• The ability to remain calm under psychological stress improves athletic performance. 

Take away: What does this mean for me?

If you are a coach and you aren’t building on the foundations of nervous system activation and deactivation then you aren’t setting your athletes up for success. Neural priming pre game can boost your athlete’s performance. If they’re beginning to lose focus under pressure, a quick way to maintain calmness is to do 2-3 rounds of a double inhale, followed by a long exhale. 

UPCOMING MANUSCRIPT AND WEBINAR

For all premium members, I am so excited to deliver the monthly manuscript! This month the team and I have carefully curated a sleep manuscript that will be delivered straight to your inbox!

This will cover:

• Neurobiology of sleep

• How seep increases cognitive performance

• How sleep decreases injury

• The relationship between sleep and visual acuity/ visual system

All manuscripts are internally peer reviewed and have been written from the most up-to-date scientific literature.

Also, I am thrilled to invite all premium members to the upcoming live webinar. If you aren’t a premium member and still want to attend, you can!

For all premium members, you will receive your manuscript next week and webinar details also.

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