Sport Psychology Tactics - Tactical Athletes And the Importance Of Managing Autonomic Nervous System Dysregulation
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!
Tactical Athletes, Mental Performance & The Autonomic Nervous System
When most people think about members of the military or law enforcement, they almost never consider how these professionals are like athletes. But the fact of the matter is that these individuals fall into a special category that sport psychologists and human performance professionals refer to as tactical athletes. Even though the outcomes of tactical athlete performance have far more consequential outcomes, like sports a combat environment shares many of the same traits.
Because our society and communities function better when tactical athletes have optimal mental health performance, I wanted to take some time to discuss specific considerations for tactical athletes. For this Training Report I am first going to focus on the shared traits between sport and combat environments. I will then discuss the impact this has on tactical athlete autonomic nervous systems, and then I will review strategies tactical athletes can use to increase their mental health performance.
Similarities Between The Sport & Tactical Athlete Environment
My interest in the tactical athlete population began during my experience watching Naval Aviators qualify for deployment aboard the USS Nimitz. What I realized during this observation was that the process of qualifying for deployment shared a key trait that sports performances have: stress testing. Naval Aviators are tactical athletes, and in order to make sure that they are qualified to execute the required responsibilities, the Navy needs to run stress tests to make sure that they can handle the demands of deployment.
When you think of scrimmages during training in baseball, or NFL players trying to make the roster cuts during preseason, these athletes are undergoing constant stress tests to demonstrate to the coaches that they can perform to expectations. While this is a necessary process, one of the unintended consequences of repetitive stress tests is that they can have negative long-term health outcomes upon the participants, which will most likely lead to a shortened career in their profession. One system in the human body that is affected by this is the autonomic nervous system.
Tactical Athletes, Polyvagal Theory & The Autonomic Nervous System
The autonomic nervous system has garnered great interest amongst mental health care professionals and sport psychologists. Dr. Stephen Porges, one of the more well-known experts within the field has made groundbreaking discoveries and provided excellent descriptions about how this system works. Per his website, the following quote illustrates important characteristics of this system, “The mind and body are connected through the vagus nerve, the longest nerve in the autonomic nervous system, stretching from the brainstem to the colon. It is our internal control center, allowing the brain to monitor and receive information about many of our bodily functions”.
The quote continues, “The vagus nerve helps to regulate critical aspects of human physiology, including the heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, digestion and even speaking. As the body takes in information automatically through neuroception, the vagus nerve communicates this information to the brain, which processes the signals and cues from the world around us and in turn determines how we react through three physiological states: Parasympathetic/ventral vagal state, sympathetic state, or dorsal vagal state”. Unfortunately over time, the more stress tests that tactical athletes incur, the more their autonomic nervous system will become dysregulated. Fortunately there are risk-mitigation strategies these athlete populations can use to offset the negative outcomes.
Tactical Athletes Integrating Sport Psychology & Autonomic Nervous System Regulation
Most sport psychologists use the predictable techniques that are rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy to help elite performers work through mental blocks, stress and enhance mental performance. But when studying mental health concerns, the vast majority of research shows that these issues are not due to lack of insight, but rather from pressure emanating from deep regions of the brain. Fortunately, these areas of the brain can be tapped into through different methods: auditory stimulation and/or breath work.
If tactical athletes want to use auditory stimulation to help perpetuate the symptoms of a calm nervous system, there is significant research that supports utilizing titrated listening sessions of filtered audio overtime, which can create a more balanced autonomic nervous system. The other method that tactical athletes can use is regimented deep breathing sessions that use techniques such as diaphragmatic ratio breathing. Research strongly suggests that daily deep breath work can retune the autonomic nervous system to move from states of anxiety and dysregulation to more calm, parasympathetic states. Whichever approach tactical athletes decide to use, what is most important is that they are regularly engaged in evidence-based techniques that help retune their autonomic nervous systems after high quantities of stress-test reps in order to extend their careers.
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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