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[mindurance-blog]

What is Stress Management and How does Mindurance Address it?

Stress is defined as mental, physical, and emotional overload. So, when you really think about how stress occurs, it all comes down to a pretty simple equation.

Demands > Coping = Stress.  

Let me break this down even more. Demands are anything—positive or negative—that burns our mental, physical, emotional, and psychological fuel. Going through a break up is, of course, demanding, though planning a vacation can also be demanding, even though it’s positive. Positive demands will burn our fuel at a slower rate than the more obviously “negative” demands. That is the image we want you to have in your head: A fuel tank that drains every day. It either drains quickly, as a result of being faced with many negative demands, or it drains slowly because the demands we’re tackling are ones we are passionate about. Regardless, our fuel decreases over the course of each day.

Coping resources are things, positive or negative, that fill up our mental, physical, emotional, and psychological fuel tanks. High quality positive fuel consists of things like journaling, meditation, on demand performance coaching, exercise, and social support, whereas negative quality fuel would be eating junk food, indulging in too much alcohol or drugs, or escaping to other forms of poor behavior. Though these negative coping resources feel good in the moment, they are temporary and lead to more fuel burning as a result. As such, we should strive to fill our fuel tanks with high quality fuel.

Finally, we have our experience of stress. Remember, stress is mental, physical, and emotional overload. A little bit of stress is OK. We need it to get out of bed in the morning, study for the test, prepare for the competition, and make ourselves better. However, when stress becomes too overwhelming, bad things happen. We become fatigued, anxious, depressed, and succumb to a whole myriad of mental, physical, and emotional concerns. Some of us experiences stress physically (tight shoulders, etc.) and others experience it mentally (worrying, poor concentration), but most of us experience a combination of both. So, how does stress occur? Stress occurs when our demands exceed our abilities to cope. Again, a little bit of stress is good… it keeps us progressing through life. However, when our demands become VERY DEMANDING and our coping resources are limited, we are greatly out of balance. The greater than sign is too pronounced and we are at risk of developing the negative effects of stress.

What is one to do? Rebalance! Bring the equation back in line by either decreasing demands or increasing coping strategies. There are a plethora of methods of decreasing demands and increasing coping resources, many of which you can find with Mindurance. You can do everything from read sports performance psychology articles to watching mental health awareness videos that can apply to anyone. However, that is not the point of this article. No, the point of this article is to explain stress, how it occurs, and how Mindurance can help with its mental health online courses and coaching for performers.

So, how can Mindurance help? In several ways! First, knowledge is power. We can use knowledge to view our demands in a different light, which makes them less demanding. Then we can figure out new ways of dealing with them. Both of which can be achieved by educating yourself using the free collection of content under Mindurance Learn – like our podcast for sport psychology and sports performance enhancement online courses. Along with the help of a sport psychology online coach, you can self-study your way to self-help. The other way is through support. Mindurance Now is the service arm of Mindurance in that it allows you to meet professionally trained psychologists, counselors, social workers, and consultants that know the demands associated with being an athlete, performer, and professional and can support you in your exploration, discovery, and implementation of effective coping strategies. Simply put, you can brainstorm better or more effective ways of living, bringing the stress equation back into balance. That is what these professionals do.

Mindurance is built around taking away the stress associated with performing and seeking help by reducing as many barriers, stigmas, constraints, and unnecessary decisions as possible that are involved in the process. From stress management articles by professionals to podcasts for mental health, and a platform that allows you to meet with someone in as little as one minute from sign up to session, Mindurance embodies the idea that life can be hard, but seeking help shouldn’t be. So if you’re out there and feel like your demands are starting to overpower your ability to cope, don’t feel like you have to figure out that math on your own. Reach out to a certified mental performance coach on Mindurance now.  

[mindurance-blog]

Welcome to Mindurance

It was February 2019. I was standing with my buddy Brett in the kitchen of a house he and his family rented in Longboat Key, Florida. We were having a beer getting ready to go grab dinner. We were reminiscing, laughing a bit, and talking work. It was at this time that he said the following:

“Ya know Steve, I get what you do as a counseling and sport performance psychologist. I kinda wish I would have chatted with someone when I was playing baseball in college. It would have been nice to just call someone occasionally, even if just for a couple minutes. But instead, you had to call ahead for an appointment, go to an office, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and make it a big deal. I would have just wanted to call someone occasionally and quickly to talk some shit out.”

It was at that moment where I realized something had to be done. But first, a bit of context. I am Steve Graef. Founder and Owner of Mindurance. I am also a board certified and licensed Counseling Psychologist with a specialization in sport and performance psychology, as well as a former collegiate football player at The Ohio State University. So, I have spent my life devoted to the learning and application of psychological theory and practice, and have a fairly decent understanding of the bi-directional impact that “œmental health” can have on sport and performance and vice versa. I also understand how mental health can be appropriately managed and I understand, and have personally experienced, what can happen when it is not. And I know the pros and cons associated with both traditional and modern methods of assessing, diagnosing, and managing psychological concerns.

As a result, when my friend disclosed his thoughts, I couldn’t disagree. I too have felt for a little while that there was something amiss about the field. That somehow in the process of raising awareness and necessity around mental health care we have instead become hypersensitive to it and have overemphasized the possibility of being one of those people that develop advanced depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. In doing so, we may have left the larger majority of the population out of the discussion and perhaps further ostracized them into thinking that “they’re not depressed enough or anxious enough or fucked up enough” to warrant help for these things that people are now talking about. A few statistics. According to National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) approximately 20% of American adults will experience a psychological illness over the next year. Further, it is estimated that we have a 50% chance of experiencing some mental illness by the time we are 75 years of age. So though those statistics represent millions of people and is not something we want to ignore, let us realize that those numbers also show that the majority of us will be mostly psychologically well during the next year, and likely the rest of our lives. So, let it be stated that the MAJORITY...yes the MAJORITY of individuals do not have and likely will not have a severe psychological disorder. However, EVERYONE experiences stress that could better be managed and wish to do life a little bit better than they currently are. This majority is the population that Mindurance aims to address. Why? Well, its the majority. It’s also preventive. Assuming there is no genetic predisposition for severe mental illness, the majority of us will be predominantly mentally well as long as we take care of ourselves. Take care of ourselves physically, nutritionally, socially, spiritually, and yes mentally. And what does taking care of ourselves involve? Well, for the minority, it is in-depth intense psychological treatment. Deep diving into years of trauma or attempting to use frequent counseling, latest medications or technological advances to manage intense, frequent, and highly disruptive psychological symptoms. However, for most people, it involves basic stress management, talking things out, brainstorming ideas, learning new tactics, getting better sleep. These simple, non-serious approaches can be enough to manage stress (hence reducing the likelihood of having worsened mental health) and enhance the performance of and productivity towards our life pursuits. So I repeat, for the majority of us, our mental health is not super serious in nature, but it is important. Much like blood pressure. Blood pressure is important. Many of us have fine blood pressure. But if we eat like shit, stop exercising, and overwork ourselves, our blood pressure will get out of hand. However, simple tactics can keep most of our blood pressure within fairly healthy limits. 

Let’s consider a change. The current model of counseling is based on an outdated premise. Going back to Freud’s Psychoanalysis, it was assumed that you went to see an analyst (psychologist) when something was wrong with you and to correct any dis-ease that was prominent in your life. Despite counseling psychology appropriately evolving theories of change and realizing that people can also be psychologically-well, the infrastructure of the counseling endeavor remains the same. Drive to an office. Sit in the waiting room. Fill out the paperwork. Go in the room. Close the door. Give your entire history. To the person with the credentials. Fill the full hour. Pay the receptionist. Schedule for next week. Try to leave unrecognized. Rinse and repeat. Now again, this model isn’t awful. But it isn’t for everyone. And it doesn’t need to be. It doesn’t have to be. It shouldn’t be.

How about this? What if you could go to a website that had a bunch of specific information addressing your particular needs or concerns. You could do your own reading, listening, or studying on the topic(s) of your choice like sports performance enhancement articles and mental health awareness videos. This “self-help” might just give you the insight necessary to manage whatever stress you have going on or help positively influence the mental component of your particular performance activity. So far so good? Cool. Well maybe that doesn’t quite cut it for you. You want a little additional accountability. Maybe you just like talking things out so they make more sense to you. Maybe you do like the idea of chatting with someone that knows a lot about your particular concerns or have answers to the questions that you seek. Though, admittedly, you don’t want to drive anywhere extra. You’re not sure if you want to commit to the full hour. You certainly don’t want to wait 3 weeks to talk to someone. You also, likely, don’t want to be “forced” to see a practitioner you don’t vibe with solely because they are the only person in town. What if instead you had choice? You didn’t have to drive anywhere. You didn’t have to commit to lengthy sessions. You didn’t have to tell your entire life story on a document that people might not even read. What if you could call who you want...when you want..from where you want....for as long as you want...to get the support you want. That is what Mindurance Now offers. You can search and find the provider that works for you. That fits in your budget. That knows your sport or dance or job. That is available when you are. Now imagine calling them and paying for each minute you use, rather than feeling compelled to fill an hour that you might not have had in the first place. Choice indeed. Now suppose you value community. You would love to eventually meet your provider. Interact with like minded performers. Receive more intensive training at premier locations. Well Mindurance Live offers a re-thinking and tooling of how such interaction and development can occur. Intrigued?? Well you came to the right place.

So almost one year ago, thanks to that conversation, I decided to supplement the field of sport and performance psychology by offering a set of products and services that help athletes, performing artists, and professionals manage stress and enhance performance. This is what Mindurance does. It isn’t meant to take away from the important, necessary, and traditional models of care that already exist. But it is meant to offer something new, something unique, and something relevant to that majority of the population outside of the 20%, that still have questions that need answered, behaviors that need changed, stress that needs managed, performance that needs enhanced, and concerns that need heard. If that’s you, welcome to the movement, let’s have a conversation.