Sport Psychology Tactics - Equestrian Athletes & How Brainspotting Clears Mental Blocks
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Introduction: Equestrian Athletes, Mental Blocks & Peak Performance
Athletes across the sport spectrum experience many unique challenges to their competition environment. Some examples can include but are not limited to sports-related injuries, external pressure from coaches or sponsors, meeting performance deadlines, or dealing with unexpected setbacks during performance and/or training. Equestrian athletes like any other sport population experience these issues, but in some ways more intensely due to the fact that the horse is a key partner in the performance process.
One common issue that equestrian athletes encounter during training, is experiencing a mental block, AKA the Yips. These mental blocks can come in the form of pre-performance anxiety, nausea, flight, fright, freeze responses or blackout responses. Even worse, equestrian athletes have to manage these issues while also being mindful of the horse’s mental health status. For this issue of the Training Report I want to explain what equestrian athlete mental blocks are and how to overcome them. Let’s first begin by exploring more examples of how this occurs in this sport context.
Part I. What Mental Blocks Look Like In Equestrian Athletics
Interestingly, there is a considerable amount of research that explores many different psychological issues that occur in equestrian athletics. For example, there is interesting research that explores ideal pre-performance mood states for this athlete population. But one of the least understood aspects about equestrian athlete mental performance, is what constitutes a mental block in the sport? Based on my experience there are several red flags that athletes should be aware of. Many equestrian athletes will report mental block symptoms that include experiencing extreme anxiety which affects how the athlete sits on the horse and how they use the reigns during performances. This muscle tension will affect the horses gait pattern which in turn will affect performance outcomes in competitions such as hunter jumper, dressage and other events. Other common behaviors include unexplainable muscle pain, freeze responses when riding, decreased sleep patterns, rapid breathing, decreased confidence, temperature change in the body and sometimes social isolation
This is all completely understandable because the stressful nature of equestrian athletics will inevitably take a toll on all the athletes. The stressful nature of transporting the horse, taking care of the horse, hoping that wherever the horse is being boarded that it is adequately being taken care of, reasonable fear for safety of being bucked off or falling off during competition, fear of failing in front of others, fear of not meeting one’s expectations or the expectations of others, concerns for not meeting sponsorship standard’s of performance, etc. All of these are examples of factors that place incredible stress upon the athlete’s both mentally and physically. But what is the neurological explanation for what is happening in these stressful situations?
Part II. The Neuroscience Of Athlete Mental Blocks
Neuroscience research seems to strongly suggest that mental blocks are actually symptoms of unprocessed trauma. This trauma can either be related or unrelated to sport competition. Examples can include being a victim of abuse (emotional, sexual or physical), car accidents, developmental trauma (e.g. being born with an umbilical cord around the neck during birth) or intensive surgeries with long recovery periods. Ultimately, these symptoms are are manifestations of pressure emanating from deep regions of the brain. When we undergo traumatic experiences, our ‘rational brain’ is flooded with stress hormones rendering that structure obsolete. Our subcortical brain structures then jump into high gear putting us into a survival based response (e.g. flight, fight, freeze). However, once the event has passed our subcortical brain tags the memory of that event with a type of body-sensation to act as a bookmark. This is because the subcortical brain on some level is ‘unsure’ if the event is over, thus keeping us in a state of hypervigilance, always ready for the next potential threat.
In the book This Is Your Brain On Sports by David Grand, the author goes into great detail to explain the neuroscience behind the sports-related stress and how the brain generates the Yips reflex responses. The author describes as follows ‘In parallel fashion, the brain attempts to always move toward a state of psychological equilibrium. Over the course of our lives, we are exposed to a variety of life experiences, some positive, some neutral, and some negative. Through a natural assimilation process, the brain adaptively processes these experiences so they are constructively integrated. What is useful from the experience is learned and stored in the brain with the appropriate emotion and is available for future use. When an experience is successfully assimilated or digested it is stored in the brain with little attached intense emotion or physical sensation. When we recall such an incident, we don’t reexperience the old emotion or sensation with it. In this way we are informed by our past experiences and memories but not controlled by them and with sports our present athletic performances are not burdened by emotional or physical baggage from the past, only learned experience. By contrast, trauma or any strongly negatively charged experience isn’t adequately assimilated or processed. Instead, the upsetting incident remains stuck in the system in broken pieces’.
The author continues, ‘ The body instantly memorizes the physical experience of the trauma in exquisite detail, including the body sensations of the impact and pain, along with the associated sights, sounds, smells and tastes. The attached emotions and where they are felt in the body are frozen as well. The brain is overwhelmed and instead of getting digested, all of the information attached to the injury, including the negative thoughts is stored in the brain in exactly the same form it was initially experienced. Days, week, months or even years later when the athlete is in a situation reminiscent of the original trauma or experiences prolonged stress, the upsetting experience may be unconsciously activated, thus interfering with the performance of the moment. These components represent all of the sensory details from the earlier event that were frozen in the brain and body in their original disturbing state: the images, lighting, emotions, physical movements, sounds, or smells. The unique sensory details later returning to consciousness cause the performance disrupting symptoms so common in mental blocks.’ So how can equestrian athletes deal with this issue?
Part III. Brainspotting & Clearing Equestrian Athlete Mental Blocks
A new psychotherapy technique called Brainspotting has begun to take the sports-world by storm. Brainspotting is a brain-based psychotherapy technique that evolved from EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing). In Brainspotting we say ‘where you look, affects how you feel’. What this means is that during this process, the sport psychologist will collaborate with the athlete having them process the disturbing issue while having them incorporate certain eye movement patterns to process the issue.
By having athlete use their eyes in specific movement patterns, sport psychologists are helping athletes bypass the areas of the brain that are not involved with the creation of mental blocks, and accessing the areas of the brain that are directly involved. While there is high quality research that is still being done on Brainspotting, there is still more that needs to be done since it is a relatively new intervention. However, if you are interested in learning more about Brainspotting, use the link here to find out more about the science behind this new sport psychology approach!
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
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