Nathan and I hope you enjoyed the session last week. It proved to be, from our perspective, one of the best sessions we have participated in since the lockdown. There was great interaction, sharing of thoughts and questions thank you. The interaction was such that we spent a good 90 minutes reviewing your own reactions and challenges to the pandemic/lockdown. I have captured that in summary notes if anyone wishes to receive a copy and you are happy to share that with each other. Our reflection would be that your challenges have been different, personal, substantial and you have dealt with them in different ways: that you are more likely to be mentally tougher and more resilient than the majority of those working for you so it is important to be mindful of how they are coping or not.
The length of time we spent sharing your experiences meant we did not deliver all of the content we normally would. Plus there was fatigue building in the room towards the end of the session. I have summarised some of that content and added extra to cover what we did not manage to get through in the following way:
resilience slide presentation - this is the slide deck for the 3 hour workshop which has been delivered in the past two years to the Alliance and formed the basis of the original work with Mike and Ian at the start of the Alliance. I have included it as a reminder for those who participated and as a prompt for those who did not to ask for further explanation on anything
a 90- second read on resilience which attempts to fill in some of the commentary that is delivered with the slide deck - again to help those who didn't attend the 3 hour workshop
a slightly longer read which goes into more depth about the nervous system and why it is important to understand from both a performance and wellbeing perspective - it's important. to maintain high performance in the long term and not burn out or become ill...or worse.
a short read about an important feature of the nervous system which we talked about last week - the social engagement system - this is what Nathan had inadvertently neglected when pushing himself hard to overcome the disappointment of failing to win a medal at the World Championships. So despite ticking all the normal wellbeing boxes (sleep, nutrition etc.) he developed chronic fatigue which plagued him for 3 years.
a slide which attempts to visually pull together all 3 documents - a bit ambitious and possibly a bit complex. BUT essentially it's helpful to remind yourself that whatever is going on in our heads we can only be engaged in certain systems in the body and these can be categorised according to their energetic state - relaxed (energy conserving/replenishing); aroused or activated (fight/flight) when we are burning energy - linked to fatigue; frozen - when we are burning excessive energy but are not moving - Nathan may have experienced this after he had failed to qualify and found himself unable to leave the stadium. You can freeze in meetings, making presentations. If you are put on the spot in a difficult meeting/interview etc. and your nervous system freezes...it can literally hijack your thinking mind and your answer or statements may not bear any resemblance to what you would say if you were in a calm state. It is not quite the same thing as the hijacking of the rational brain that takes place when we are very angry but for the purposes of this short explanation it is perhaps wise to acknowledge that significant stress is not good for clever or collaborative thinking! You can train yourself to become more masterful at emotional regulation in high stress contexts and it only takes a few minutes practice daily.
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best wishes
Mark & Nathan
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