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KUALA LUMPUR - Over the months, The Vibes has highlighted the struggles our national athletes face in the midst of this global pandemic, as well as the importance of a sports psychologist for these athletes.
At a webinar on ‘Using psychophysiological measures: research frontliners for helping athletes achieving peak performance in the Covid-19 pandemic’ held by the National Sports Institute, with guest speaker Dr. Garry Kuan from University Science Malaysia, associate professor of the Exercise and Sports Science Programme, and moderated by Aruna Santhappan, we got a deeper understanding on how the global pandemic has affected our athletes across the nation.
Psychophysiology may sound like a big word, but from our understanding, it basically means, how the body reacts to what happens in our mind, which can be affected by both external and internal factors.
For an athlete to be able to perform at their optimal, they will need to be able to do what they do in a calm yet alert state. Mindfulness within athletes is crucial.
Dr. Kuan explained how as people, we experience life in cycles; be it day and night, or seasonal and yearly.
Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has been a dampener on our yearly cycle and affected how we would usually carry out our year; as well as an athlete’s progression throughout the year.
As much as this sounds like a great time for athletes to practice mindfulness, a proper psychophysiological programme will take one to two years before taking effect on the athletes as Dr. Kuan explained.
Starting with an intervention, to the assessment, discussion with the coaches, implementations, then application and finally re-evaluation is needed before self-regulation is possible.
With the pandemic at hand, it is not breaking news that mental health at a generic level has deteriorated and as explained by Dr. Kuan, it is like switching from a clean desktop to having a multitude of windows, tabs and files open.
“With the pandemic, we face a fight or flight response daily.”
This means that our body is taking a hit every day, resulting to an increase in stress, and therefore, we tend to procrastinate; completing all and any task that is the simplest and reaping rewards from it, before putting in the hard work for a delayed result.
Henceforth, Dr. Kuan proposed that everyone, public and athletes, go back to basics; sleeping, diet, mental health and exercise.
By going back to the basics, we regenerate the intrinsic motivation to regain our flow in life. - The Vibes. June 26, 2021
