Choking, penalties, underperforming in big games or the postseason, and performing better at home than away – these are some of the more obvious indicators that stress is affecting performance. Likewise, if your performance varies greatly (in either direction) from practice to game day, that can also be an indicator.

Some people are better practice players because they aren’t feeling pressured to win, they’re not worried about letting their teammates down, or about who in the stands or on television might be watching. But in a game, these thoughts prevent them from performing at their peak.

Others are better game day players because the love of the game and its intensity allows everything else to fall away. However, their practice suffers because they are more aware of a coach’s scrutiny or are concerned about looking foolish practicing a new skill, or because without the intensity of the game they can’t access focused attention.

Sometimes, the field is our sanctuary, but it is stressful situations outside of our sport – relationships, finances, academics – that interrupt our focus.

Alternatively, you might notice you are often worried about making a mistake, letting your teammates down, or thinking that the coach doesn’t like you or is unfair. Those thoughts will limit your ability to perform at your peak. The good news is mindfulness can help in each and all of these scenarios.

Yes! Mindfulness is not magic; it is work. But there is 40 years of research indicating it can outperform pharmaceuticals in addressing physical, psychological, and behavioral health problems.

Likewise, research has found mindfulness reduces compassion fatigue in first responders and caregivers, increases situational awareness in athletes and first responders, and enhances performance for those in high-stress environments, including students (test-taking), athletes, lawyers, doctors, first responders, musicians, actors, executives, and entrepreneurs.

Mindfulness is not a replacement for medical or psychological treatments or for performance and skill training; it is a necessary complement.

Yes! I have read books about field hockey, watched videos and countless games, observed and assisted talented coaches running practice, and over the years learned enough to coach field hockey at a competitive level. But that doesn't make me able to play the sport. Only practicing the sport itself will do that.

Mindfulness takes practice. Not because it is difficult to do, but because it involves breaking old habits and replacing them with new ones. The difficult thing about mindfulness is remembering to do it, and initially to choose to do it over other priorities – especially when so much of our stress is time stress.

At Pro Mindfulness, we approach mindfulness as habit formation, helping clients to set intentions for practice and then to align their behaviors and choices with their goals.

Committing to a mindfulness practice can be daunting when our days are already so full. I rarely have a first-time client who does not struggle with this when deciding whether or not to sign up for an 8-week class, or even a single session.

But every one of them has said that the sessions actually created more spaciousness in their lives, either because they became more intentional about how they spent their time and therefore wasted less of it, or because they were more likely to enjoy what was keeping them busy, or both. I hope you’ll experiment and see if this is the case for you, too.

Research indicates the average person has about 60,000 thoughts per day. A staggering 80% of those thoughts are negative (thanks to the brain’s evolutionary negativity bias), and 95% of them are the exact same thoughts we had yesterday due to automatic, subconscious patterns in our nervous system.

The good news is communication between the body and the brain is a two-way street. When needed, we can direct the mind in a way that eases the body’s stress response, and we can direct the body in a way that stills the mind. Participants study how their bodies handle stress and from that investigation, learn to cope with stress, pain, and challenges with grace and composure.

Sessions include, but go beyond, breathing exercises, establishing the connection between thoughts and emotions, encouraging participants to recognize patterns of thought in a way that interrupts unconscious patterns of behavior, gaining agency over our own minds, and allowing us to meet our fullest potential.

Yes! Pro Mindfulness teaches clients to systematically address physical restlessness and a wandering mind in order to interrupt the body’s physiological reaction to stress, allowing us to choose, skillfully, how we respond to life’s challenges.

Being busy doesn’t mean we have to be overwhelmed. Being fast doesn’t mean we have to be in a hurry. Responsibilities don’t have to feel like obligations. Relationships don’t have to be so complicated. Grief doesn’t have to be all-consuming.

With mindfulness, we can remember what it’s like to sleep well and to feel well—whatever internal or external stressors we may be facing.