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Interviewer: Pressure, whether you're an elite athlete or speaking in public, it can be a killer. Tips to deal with it next on The Scope.

Announcer: Medical news and research from University of Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to The Scope.

Interviewer: No matter who you are you deal with pressure, and if you deal with pressure a little bit better, your life might be better. We're going to find out some tips from Nicole Detling. She's a sports psychologist and has worked with Olympic athletes, most recently the U.S. ski team's freestyle aerialists in Sochi. She's also a visiting faculty member in the Exercise and Sports Science Psychology program at the University of Utah. Let's talk about pressure for a second.

Nicole Detling: Sure.

Interviewer: What is pressure? Let's get that definition out because I don't think a lot of people think about what exactly that means.

Nicole Detling: Sure. I think we all feel pressure to a degree almost every day of our lives. Probably what would be a better term for most of us out there is stress. I can't think of a single person I've ever met who hasn't experienced stress on a daily basis. But I would say if we think of stress or pressure, it's more of when you feel that your resources do not match the demands that you are under so whether you have this big project that's due at work and you don't feel you have enough time to complete it, something like that would be stress or pressure where you're under a situation that you have to perform and you just don't feel like you're able to do it the way you want it to be done.

Interviewer: So for Olympic athletes for example, the jump or the trick, whatever they're going to try is something that they're not completely confident with.

Nicole Detling: Maybe not, or they just feel that, "Gosh, I've only done this a couple of times. I'm confident that I can compete it when I don't have all these cameras on me and all these expectations, but gosh, I'm in this situation and all these other things are happening." The pressure can be increased.

Interviewer: So it's a lot like if I'm relaxed and just talking to somebody I'm passionate about, the words flow so easily and my thoughts come out so coherently, but when it's in front of a room of 500 people, all of a sudden I'm a different person. That's pressure.

Nicole Detling: That's pressure, and typically the situation's the same, right? You could give that speech, and you can nail it when no one's watching. It's the exact same speech when there's 500 people there so the difference between those two situations is how your mind perceives that situation. That's where pressure comes from. It's typically something that we create in our minds in response to a situation.

Interviewer: Alright, so now let's talk about this in real terms. So whether I'm an Olympic athlete or giving that presentation, are my strategies going to be the same?

Nicole Detling: You're strategies will be very similar. Yes, absolutely. The things that I teach Olympic athletes are the exact same things that anybody out there can use when they're dealing with stress and pressure.

Interviewer: Cool, OK, well give me so tips how I can nail that presentation that I know I can do anyway.

Nicole Detling: Sure, well I will say the Number 1 source of confidence is preparation so if you're giving that speech, it's probably best that you practice that speech many, many times prior to going into that situation. Practice it by yourself. Practice it in front of friends and family, friendly audiences so to speak, and maybe increase the number of people you're practicing it to each time you practice it so you get a little bit more comfortable. If you step on that stage and you feel like you have put the time in and you are ready, you're more likely to not feel as much pressure in that situation and be able to really nail that performance.

Interviewer: How important is it that I do it in front of other people? Because I feel funny doing that, right?

Nicole Detling: Sure, you do, but you're going to feel funny in front of 500 people if you don't practice.

Interviewer: OK, so you've really... That's an important step is what you're telling me.

Nicole Detling: Sure, it's an important step, absolutely, and it may not be for everyone, not everyone needs to do that, but that would be a good idea for someone who does feel a lot of pressure if they are speaking in front of 500 people.

Interviewer: Do your due diligence that way. What else could I do? What other things could I employ?

Nicole Detling: There's a lot of different exercises that I'll teach an athlete in terms of the thought processes that they have going on in their head. So something athletes hear me say all the time is, "I don't care who you are or what sport you do, how good you are if you look for reasons to fail, you will find them." So in that situation you can look for, "Oh my gosh, what are these people going to think about me. Are they going to know more than I do? What if I sound like an idiot?" Yeah, sure you can find those reasons, but on the other hand, if you look for reasons to succeed, you will find those reasons as well. So in that situation, the speech situation, you can also think, "I have put my time in. I know my material. They asked me to give this speech because I have something to offer. They believe I have something to offer." And so thinking about it in terms of just reframing the thoughts in your mind from looking for reasons to fail to looking for reasons to success, that's one strategy.

Interviewer: OK.

Nicole Detling: Another strategy would be using deep breathing techniques, anything that will help deal with the butterflies in your stomach and just kind of calming your body down. Something I say a lot to is, "You have to control yourself first before you have a chance to control your performance." And for many people, that pressure is going to cause anxiety. So the anxiety feelings may be you have to pee 20 times before you perform, sweaty palms, butterflies in your stomach, things like that, and when you feel uncomfortable, you might feel out of control. Imagine how good you would feel if your body felt comfortable and you felt in control of your performance. What would that do for your confidence?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Nicole Detling: So if you do deep breathing techniques or some kind of a meditation prior to going out in that situation, you get your body under control, it's easier to get your mind under control.

Interviewer: So when I was watching the Olympics, I noticed a lot of the athletes listen to music beforehand. Is that their way of taking their mind out of the moment, relaxing themselves?

Nicole Detling: Yeah, and that's actually another strategy is to use distraction, use a deliberate type of distraction, and music can be a great deliberate distraction. So if you have a particular kind of music that you listen to that just helps you feel calm and relaxed and comfortable then absolutely, listening to that music prior to going onstage and performing could be really beneficial for you to get your body under control and then it's easier, as I said before, to get your mind under control.

Interviewer: That seems counter-intuitive that I would want to distract myself from what I was about to do. I would think I'd want to really think about it and make sure I've got my steps down but not so helpful.

Nicole Detling: Well, you know, it depends on the person. Everybody's different so for some people, absolutely not, that would not be helpful at all. For other people, it would be incredibly helpful so part of this whole process is knowing what works for you, and one way to find that is you can find any performance in your life, and sport is one performance, but we perform all day long, every day in everything that we're doing. We perform at our jobs. We perform driving to and from our jobs, some of us better than others. We perform as parents. We perform as spouses. We perform in every aspect of life so think back to a time when you feel that you were performing exceptionally well regardless of what that performance was.

Interviewer: Like that great parenting moment where you really felt you explained something to your children, and they got it, and...

Nicole Detling: Exactly, it clicked. It worked. You got the result you were looking for, and then rewind the tape just a little bit further and say, "Where was my mindset before that? What was I doing? Was I really thinking about what I was going to say and what I wanted to happen? Or was I in the car listening to the radio, and I got home and it clicked?" Right? So what are some of those scenarios where you've had performance in the past, and if you look at many of those scenarios, you'll be able to find trends, and what you did prior to a good performance, that will help you determine some ideas going forward for what may help you in those situations deal with that pressure and stress.

Interviewer: Alright, I'm sure we could talk about this for hours.

Nicole Detling: Easily.

Interviewer: We've got to wrap it up though. Is there a final thought that you have for our audience when it comes to this topic?

Nicole Detling: Probably, knowing yourself. Finding what you need and then finding the tools that are necessary in order for you to really get what you need out of each experience so that you can perform your best every single time you perform.

Announcer: We're your daily dose of science, conversation, medicine. This is The Scope, University of Utah Health Sciences radio.

Interviewer: What are the common mental obstacles athletes face? That's next on The Scope.

Announcer: Medical news and research from University of Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to The Scope.

Interviewer: Nicole Deting is a Sports Psychology Consultant, she's worked with Olympic Athletes, most recently the U.S. Ski Teams Free Style Aerialists in Sochi, she has also worked with athletes here at the University of Utah, and is a visiting faculty member in the Exercise in the Sports Science Department at the University of Utah. Let's talk about common mental obstacles athletes face.

Nicole Deting: There's actually two that I...

Interviewer: Just two?

Nicole Deting: Just two.

Interviewer: Okay.

Nicole Deting: That I would say are the most predominant. I've been doing this for 16 years now, and within that 16 years two have risen to the surface in that almost every single athlete I've ever worked with are dealing, or struggling, with these two primary issues.

Interviewer: Alright can I guess?

Nicole Deting: Yes.

Interviewer: The fear of failure, fear of injury?

Nicole Deting: You're very close.

Interviewer: Very close but not right?

Nicole Deting: Very close but not right.

Interviewer: Okay what are they?

Nicole Deting: Well the first one is anxiety, and that anxiety might come from fear of injury, or fear of failure, but anxiety related to performance so, "Am I going to be good enough? Can I do what I'm trying to do?" So whether it's a performance timing anxiety in terms of being good enough that day, or an injury, or a re-injury, or failing, or even a fear of success, it all kind of gets lumped under that anxiety category.

Interviewer: Okay.

Nicole Deting: And that's absolutely one of, actually that one is the most predominant issue I guess I would say that I would deal with, and so there are a lot of mental skills that I'll teach athletes in order to help deal with their anxiety levels before performance.

Interviewer: What's the second one?

Nicole Deting: Second one is confidence, that usually surprises people.

Interviewer: Sure because these athletes sure look confident don't they?

Nicole Deting: Absolutely, I work with some of the best athletes in the world, I mean athletes hear at the University of Utah they're Pac 12 athletes, they've really done well. The Olympic Athletes they're some of the best in the world so when I tell people I deal with a lot of confidence issues they're pretty typically surprised yet I will also tell you that there's confidence issues in all of us regardless of whether we're elite level performers, or...

Interviewer: Tell me about it.

Nicole Deting: ...going to our job every day, right? We all question ourselves, and I think that...

Interviewer: When you leave sometimes you're like, "Oh boy I was just a waste today."

Nicole Deting: Right? Or, "Can I do this?" Or, "Oh my gosh I have all this pressure on me, am I going to be able to do what I've been asked to do?" And so confidence is something that I deal with quite a bit.

Interviewer: So anxiety and confidence are the two big things. So, when you're working with somebody what are some of the things you do to overcome these two things? Are they very different or kind of the same for both issues?

Nicole Deting: Well what's interesting is that they are two very distinct issues but they're very closely related. For example, if you're really nervous about something you're probably not too confident about it. The more confident you feel the less nervous you will likely be so they do influence each other. Does that make sense?

Interviewer: Yes it does.

Nicole Deting: Okay, so there are two separate concepts, there are training methods for each one of them separately to help, but a lot of training methods that I will work with, with athletes helps both of them. So for example, if I'm teaching an athlete methods to deal with their anxiety, and to get themselves under better control, once they learn those they are naturally going to feel more confident to go into their performance because there anxiety is under control.

Interviewer: Got you.

Nicole Deting: So there are ways to kill two birds with one stone, which is a very cool part of our field.

Interviewer: So does this apply to athletes of any age?

Nicole Deting: Any age, all abilities, all sports, both genders, you name it, absolutely.

Interviewer: Sure, so let's talk about, let's go into like a parent that has a child as an athlete for example, you know and they choke when they step up to the plate to play little league baseball.

Nicole Deting: Sure.

Interviewer: What's something that parent could do to help that child?

Nicole Deting: Well first of all I'd ask the parent, "Where did they learn that? Where did they learn to be so nervous?" And the parent...I would challenge the parent to take a hard look at themselves because a lot of anxiety is we don't...We learn how to be nervous we're not born nervous, we're not born with anxiety we learn that, and typically we learn that by watching the most significant people in our lives, whether that be parents, or coaches, or friends, at one point those friends become more significant, so any significant person, and so if I find out that one of the parents has a lot of anxiety then I talk to the parent about their anxiety, and how it manifests, and what they do about it, and I can use some of those similar things with their child. So that's where I'm going to start.

Interviewer: Got you.

Nicole Deting: But then what I'm going to do is talk to that kid and just say, "Okay how does it feel? How do you know you're nervous? What does it feel like?" Typically we're going to get you know, "Oh, I can't breathe and I feel like I'm going to vomit," or you know something like that, and then, "I question whether or not I can do it." And so then I might work on teaching them ways to better control their physiological signs. So to control some of the movements in their body, and if they're shaking how to control that shakiness, but then also giving them some thoughts in their head about why they can perform what they're going to perform. Most likely they're stuck in, "I'm not going to be able to do this." So I'm going to challenge them to give me reasons why they are going to be able to do that, and then really get their mindset in a different space. So dealing with the anxiety, helping them learn to control themselves also increases confidence, and then we can work specifically on confidence as well.

Interviewer: We could talk for a long time about all of this, how long do you work with an athlete generally?

Nicole Deting: My goal with every athlete I work with is to work myself out of a job.

Interviewer: Yeah sure.

Nicole Deting: I want them to become so good mentally they don't need me anymore, so I work really hard to foster independence with each athlete. So when they come to see me I usually give them what I call home fun, not homework, homework sucks nobody likes home work.

Interviewer: See that you're rethinking again, right.

Nicole Deting: Exactly, yup.

Interviewer: So how can I fail, how can I succeed?

Nicole Deting: Exactly, home fun, and so home fun is basically a strategy that I teach them prior to them leaving and they go work on that strategy and become better at it. At the end of the day the athletes are the ones out there competing, I can't be there every single competition for every single athlete at the end of the day it's just them out there and they need to have these strategies in place in order to be more mentally tough. So how long I work with an athlete it depends on what that athlete needs.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Nicole Deting: But I work hard to foster independence as quickly as possible.

Interviewer: Yeah, it's not something you learn overnight.

Nicole Deting: No it's not something you learn overnight. You do have to practice.

Interviewer: Any resources on the web you could point somebody to that might be interesting.

Nicole Deting: My website.

Interviewer: Okay, that's a good place to go what is it?

Nicole Deting: Yeah my website www.headstrongconsulting.com

Announcer: We're your daily dose of science, conversation, medicine. This is The Scope, University of Utah health science's radio.

Interviewer: Do you have a tendency to get stuck in the suck? We're going to talk about that next on The Scope.

Announcer: Medical news and research from University of Utah physicians and specialists you can use for a happier and healthier life. You're listening to The Scope.

Interviewer: So as a sports psychology consultant I'd imagine when you watch a game on T.V., you're probably watching it a little differently than the rest of us. I guess what I'm getting at is when you watch an athlete can you see if their having some sort of a mental issue that's preventing them from succeeding?

Nicole Detling: Well, I would say first of all if I know that athlete really well, yeah, it's pretty easy for me to see if it's an athlete that I'm working with.

Interviewer: Sure.

Nicole Detling: Some athletes are really good at the poker face and you can't tell if they just scored the game winning score of their life or they just had something amazing happen or if they just had something really horrible happen so they approach performance pretty consistently. Others we can all see when some people melt down, right?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Nicole Detling: But I would say having done this for so long, I'm probably watching sports a little bit different than most people. I love watching sports. In fact, it's the only thing that's ever on my T.V. I often get people asking me if I watch shows, and I haven't even heard of half of them.

Interviewer: Sure.

Nicole Detling: Like if that was on during any game, the answer's "no." But typically, yeah, it's interesting because I'll watch sport and I can really appreciate the physicality of the sport so the grace, the power, the strength. It's so amazing to me what people can do with their bodies, but I can never pull that away from really assessing what's going on with them mentally, and I really like to watch games and look for physical versus mental mistakes. Having the training that I have, I can usually pick out if its just a physical mistake. Physical mistakes sometimes just happen. We just have errors sometimes.

Interviewer: Like in a football game, somebody misses a catch.

Nicole Detling: It depends, right?

Interviewer: Yeah, how would you tell the difference?

Nicole Detling: So sometimes that's just a physical mistake. Well, a lot of times, probably the layman's way to do it if you're interested in starting to do this is watch their reaction afterwards which you don't always get on T.V. because the T.V. might change to something else, right?

Interviewer: Sure.

Nicole Detling: But if you have an opportunity, just watch that player for just a moment. If you don't get that opportunity, watch that player on the next play and see what they do. Did they miss a block? Did they run a wrong pattern? Did they something else? How many more plays happen before that athlete gets another chance? And if you know a team pretty well and the way a coach is going to coach, it's easy to point some of those things out and find them so it's interesting because you can always see it on their face, on their body language, the shoulders slumped, the head goes down. How quickly do they pick that back up?

Interviewer: Really? Interesting.

Nicole Detling: For many athletes, they make one mistake and they get stuck in the mistake mentally. Why did I do that? That was so stupid. I know better. And they really beat themselves up and that typically results in another mistake and then another mistake and then another mistake, and they spiral downward.

Interviewer: So the key really is to forget it. That was then.

Nicole Detling: The key is to move on.

Interviewer: Moving on to something else.

Nicole Detling: That's exactly right, and that's something I talk about a lot is the most important play in any sport is always the next play.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Nicole Detling: The same is true in life. The most important play in life is always the next play. We might hate what just happened. It might have sucked. We might have looked like a complete moron out there, but you can't change it. So what I talk about is embrace the suck which basically means...right? You embrace the suck so you take a minute and you say well that sucked, but don't get stuck in the suck. And so what that means is you're focusing forward. The most important play is the next play. Not getting stuck in the suck means OK, I can't change that now but I can do something about the future. What's the next play? What am I going to do on the next play? So let's go back to the football analogy. Let's say that a receiver doesn't get another ball thrown to them for awhile, but he does have a job on the next play. He can do that job and do it well on the next play, and each next play he does when he does his job well will help him move past that mistake that he made five, ten plays ago.

Interviewer: I would have a hard time believing that. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but to me it would be like now's the time I've got to catch another ball. I blocked perfectly these past three times. I blew that last block.

Nicole Detling: Yep, and you are 100% right and that's where a lot of athletes go to in their minds and that's when they start making mental mistakes. So even if he missed that ball and it's just a technical error, it was not a mental mistake, chances are his next mistake will be mental, and that's the stuff I work on is teaching them to focus forward so that they don't make a mental mistake again. There's no mental mistake or mental error that's made after that. The common thought process is now I have to do it, now I've got to do it. And typically trying too hard often results in more mistakes.

Interviewer: So you'd be better off just forgetting it.

Nicole Detling: You'd be better off forgetting it.

Interviewer: Just really trying to not even think about it.

Nicole Detling: Absolutely, you'd be better of forgetting it, but easy to say, hard to do.

Interviewer: When you make a mistake, a lot of times that could be an opportunity to learn and you analyze it as such, but could that be detrimental?

Nicole Detling: It could be because you could still get stuck in that so athletes who have a tendency to do that, what I tell them to do is you take a moment, embrace the suck, oh that sucked, OK, acknowledge it. It did. It's OK to say that sucked.

Interviewer: Do you need to say why?

Nicole Detling: Nope.

Interviewer: OK.

Nicole Detling: What you do need to do though and this is the key part, and this is what most people... Everybody gets stuck in that suck for a minute, right? Everybody says that sucked. We all do that. We got that part down. The part we don't have down is that the next part which is the most crucial part, and that's do you fix the mistake? So you very quickly just go back, you don't even have to run the entire play through your mind, but take that moment where you made the mistake and do an image of doing it correctly. What do you need to do to do it correctly? So if it's a technical error, your fingers were curled, take a moment and see your fingers in the position they should be in to catch the ball. See yourself doing it correctly. That sets you up for success in the future. There's a lot of research that shows what imagery does for our bodies, and it actually programs our muscles for the action that we are seeing in our mind so if we replay a mistake, we are more likely to repeat that mistake the next time we play.

Interviewer: Mm, the key is to change the mistake.

Nicole Detling: The key is to change the mistake so see yourself doing it correctly, and if you can see yourself doing it correctly over and over and over, you're reprogramming, and the program is stronger so that the next time you have that opportunity, you're more likely to succeed. Of course, there's no guarantee, but it does increase the chances of success.

Interviewer: Are there any other tricks to not getting stuck in the suck?

Nicole Detling: There are all kinds of tricks for not getting stuck in the suck. Absolutely, that's a big one is focusing forward, focusing on the next play. You also have replaying and doing it correctly so you're reprogramming. For a lot of people it's the self talk, alright well that was just a mistake. That kind of stuff happens. Everybody makes mistakes. I got it on the next one. And that's going to go back to maybe some confidence training. It's one thing to say I'm going to get the next one...

Interviewer: Yeah, it sounds so easy.

Nicole Detling: It's another thing to believe it, right? And so if you're not one of those people who has a tendency to be able to believe that, that might be something you'd either want to work on or choose a different strategy. OK?

Interviewer: OK.

Nicole Detling: There could be different scenarios where getting out of your own head. A lot of athletes will go into the vacuum and that's something I notice too when I'm watching. If an athlete who tends to be vocal or will cheer on their teammates all of a sudden gets quiet after a mistake, they are over-analyzing and are stuck in their heads so get out of your head which basically means start cheering for your teammates.

Interviewer: Interesting.

Nicole Detling: Talk out loud. Yell things. Get out of your head, and many times just the act of getting out of your head gets you back in the present moment where the current play is happening and then you're out of that past mistake.

Interviewer: Final thoughts on getting stuck in the suck?

Nicole Detling: I would say embrace the suck but don't get stuck in the suck. Use the strategies. Understand that getting stuck in the suck really sucks, but there are ways to get out of that suck.

Announcer: We're your daily dose of science, conversation, medicine. This is The Scope, University of Utah Health Sciences radio.