Help yourself find balance and new ways to help reduce stress with the 3 things that have helped me the most control stress.
It can be tough to find the right moment to unfold and take time for yourself in any sport. As athletes, it’s necessary to find time to breathe and take a break from the constant strain of stress in competition. With that being said, I’ve made a list of the top 3 things that helped me find balance and allow my mind and body to focus on something else other than stress while playing soccer.
1. Recovery
2. Reading
3. Time with friends and family
1. Recovery
As athletes, we constantly desire to push our bodies and improve. But, what is key in reducing stress on the mind and body is recovery. When we train and constantly push our bodies day in and day out, our bodies need rest to replenish nutrients, repair damaged muscles, heal injuries and improve psychologically. More so in my later years of playing soccer is when I truly realized the importance of recovery. Taking long walks I particularly found very helpful and realized how much I was able to just enjoy being outside and staying active instead of constantly running for two hours.
One of my favorite things to do while on those walks was listening to music or podcasts. The mix of active recovery (low-intensity exercise to recover) and listening to a song or conversation on something other than soccer played a major role in counteracting my stress after tough games or hard training sessions. I began to direct my attention towards something else rather than thoughts of personal performance, judgment, public opinion, and future thoughts. This allowed my mind and body to slow down, reset, and psychologically resist stress.
Another recovery method I incorporated into my days off after training sessions and long strenuous matches was yoga. A type of recovery I also learned to embrace because it is also considered active recovery. Although I enjoyed the strength aspect of yoga, the main value I learned from yoga while recovering was being present in the moment through breathing. Being able to breathe at a constant flow through motions involving strength for an extended period of time is more difficult than some may think. Not only was it good for recovery and building extra strength, but I’ve been able to apply some of the breathing work that I did in yoga to help manage stressful situations. Now, I was nowhere near where I would’ve liked to be with managing stress, but, yoga truly helped me immensely and improved my performance.
Recovery is necessary for any athlete to improve performance while you’re competing. It will improve not only certain aspects of your performance, but your life as well. These forms of recovery helped me and I hope they can help you too.
2. Reading
For most of my life, I’ve never actually been interested or was too fond of reading. It wasn’t until the same year the pandemic hit that I found out how much I enjoyed reading and helped me escape from everyday life. I had such a hard time redirecting my mind onto something else and it was especially hard as many people experienced being held up in an apartment most days for multiple months on end. Reading allowed my mind to escape into a different world that would release the constant focus on soccer and allow my brain to relax.
I enjoyed reading so much to the extent that in the year 2020, I read dozens of books and have not stopped since. Many of the books range from my personal favorites Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, and science fiction in general. But, there were also many autobiographies such as “Greenlights” by Matthew McConaughey and other genres that I developed a keen interest for as well.
As I mentioned, books can transport you to a realm of new ideas and possibilities. With that being said, there were countless days after training where I had to find new ways to keep my mind from stressing about my performance, and the future. Reading allowed me to escape and take my mind off of the stress I constantly encountered. To me, it was like therapy. That feeling when you’re holding onto something for so long (stress) and then finally that one moment when you let it go, that’s the feeling I experienced.
As athletes, there is this stereotype that we always have to train, study and as many say, “No days off,” to achieve greatness and rise above others. Now, we all are different and that type of personal philosophy may work for some, but I’m here to tell you from personal experience it doesn’t always work. If you don’t allow yourself a form of release from the stress as an athlete, it can be detrimental to your career, and your life outside of being an athlete can be damaged. So I encourage you, when you have time to rest or relax, find a book you like and get lost. Give your mind permission to think about something else, because if you do, your mind will thank you and even more so against the opponent, stress.
3. Time with friends and Family
Finding the time to simply be with friends and family can be hard and even more difficult. When there are so many thoughts racing through our minds and busy schedules, it can be tough. There are times when we need help instead of enduring difficulties on our own. The people close to me (friends and family) are the ones who helped me navigate through the constant stress I endured more frequently later in my career.
Studies have shown that quality time with family and friends can drastically decrease stress and improve health. From me to you, whether it be once, twice, or three times a week, set aside a time to meet up or simply just talk with the ones close to you. Go out to eat, see a movie, go for a hike, run, walk, or even just a phone call to a friend or family member. I know from experience being so caught up and focused on training or constantly wanting to improve as a player I forgot to reach out to the people I cared about most. I became so obsessed with only myself, not interacting socially caused more stress than I already was experiencing because I never talked to anyone outside of myself.
The social interaction of being around people with their own stories, problems, smiles, and laughter can make a huge difference. It helps release your mind from the daily stress as an athlete allowing you to think and participate in something other than routine thoughts such as, will I start in the game tomorrow? Will I come back from this injury? What do people think of me and my performance? Can I go further in my career?
I didn't think I needed the constant interaction because I thought being able to work through my own problems on my own was the tough thing to do. Finally, I realized how important spending time with family and friends truly helps against stress.
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