Simple advice on beating stress — on the court or in the office.
By Steve Nash
At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, our Canadian national basketball team’s sports psychologist, David Cox, spent a lot of time helping us hone our mental approach to the game — basically, he didn’t want us to choke on such a grand stage. And his advice for making sure that didn’t happen was quite simple: “Just breathe.”
David explained that when people get nervous, they tend to hold their breath or not breathe as frequently as they should, which only causes the nervous system to get even more out of whack. So in order to focus — and forget about the referee, the last play, the crowd, and our opponent — we’d remind each other to breathe normally and to take deep breaths when we were feeling a lot of pressure.
Since those Olympics, I’ve noticed that sometimes off the court I become overwhelmed and forget to breathe — from my charities to family life to sponsor obligations, I’ve got a lot on my plate. But I just take deep breaths until I come back to Earth and I’m fine. It can work for anyone. Next time you find yourself nervous about anything, try concentrating on your breathing, making sure that you’re inhaling and exhaling normally, rather than taking quick, shallow breaths that will have you flubbing a speech or hyperventilating on the sidelines.
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This article originally appeared in the September 2010 issue of Men’s Journal.
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February 21st, 2011 at 5:14 pm
This is great advice. I have a college level daughter that throws the hammer (very well I might add) but she seems to choke on the shot put. She gets nervous. I will tell her to breathe and see if that helps.
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