Why do I feel better after a break?
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When playing professional basketball, I usually feel awful and fatigued during the warm up and the start of the game, and my performance is poor. However, once I get substituted out, I somehow become more motivated and feel more in control. When I get subbed back in, I start playing amazingly
Any idea why this happens and how to recreate this?
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@lobotomize-me I’ve done a lot of public speaking in my life, and I stumbled upon this trick in high school when I tripped on my way to the podium to speak. The tripping scared me sufficiently to somehow relieve any anxiety I might have had about the speech. I gave one of the best presentations I’d ever given. Since then, I try to recreate the feeling my doing something to make myself vulnerable just prior to speaking. Tripping, or making fun of myself/making a joke specifically about me, somehow relieves some tension and then allows me to master my delivery and flow.
Maybe your warmup and your poor play at the beginning of the game are similar? They allow you to tap into inadequacy that then relieves the anxiety of “what if I play poorly?” You’ve already played poorly, so that anxiety has been fulfilled and now you can simply relax and concentrate on the mastery that you have beneath that.
What if you try to actively access this feeling in your warmup? It’s inconsequential to the game, and might allow you to start the game with that elevated sense of motivation that you get from being subbed out. Maybe wear a silly winter hat to the warm up, or tie your shoes together and trip, (though in your case you obviously don’t want to risk injury)? Is there a mascot? Maybe improv something where you’re the butt of a joke?
Embarrassment seems to be the key. It somehow resets the anxiety scale, (if you will) and allows the skill you have beneath the veneer of anxiety to come out.
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@evan-hinkle sounds good but as you mentioned it is hard to apply
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@lobotomize-me
grugg like break. grugg want break. -
@evan-hinkle said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
Embarrassment seems to be the key. It somehow resets the anxiety scale, (if you will) and allows the skill you have beneath the veneer of anxiety to come out.
I agree. If you play live music you will play some wrong notes and you will feel embarrassed. When you play the wrong notes you look to see if anyone noticed. Very few people will "notice" visibly. Also if it's about "all eyes on me," you can realize that it's not actually that. It's eyes on the phenomenon, on the spectacle, and others, not only on you. If you're a single musician/singer / speaker then maybe that's harder.
My point is that human attention has a "frame rate" like a camera. Some audience are not paying attention, others are, but not constantly with the same intensity. This allows you to get into the flow. Probably the same truth that speaking errors have to be forgotten instantly; same with sour notes - you have to correct course very quickly and put the mistakes out of mind. Because the audience isn't there for corrections or even "right" words or melodies but for entertainment and spectacle.
@lobotomize-me said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
When I get subbed back in, I start playing amazingly
I think it's the idea of a trial run. You get to "mess up" and see that it is pretty inconsequential. It's also getting into the flow. You realize it's not about you or your performance because it requires audience / team / bandmates for any meaningful action to take place. When you feel and know you can master something you like then you want to do it more.
I didn't get much satisfaction from sports like football or baseball. If it was skateboarding or guitar the pressure felt much greater to perform well (individual pursuit, I guess?).
I've heard golfers say they play better when money is on the line. Positive pressure? If you're skateboarding and mess up the first or second trick in a line, then you make way for the next person. You have to wait your turn and then there's pressure to nail it. Anyways, I wonder if basketball is similar in that if you play little pick up games all day you feel energized. You can skate (or hike, or play music) all day and not want to go to sleep. I think it's positive feedback from these routine challenges that are overcome and the dopamine release that accompanies it.
@lobotomize-me said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
Any idea why this happens and how to recreate this?
Stimulating and difficult challenges would recreate the setting of repeated attempts and failures. I take the view that the young have more options to do this and older people are more limited though there are exceptions.
@lobotomize-me said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
sounds good but as you mentioned it is hard to apply
Age or interest factor here? I'm not at all into rock climbing which I can say because I've done it a few times. But I can understand the challenge that people who do it love it for. I think it's harder to find meaningful challenges getting older. Parenting and work seem to be the traditional "challenges" for people over 20-30. But I don't think that's even accurate because nobody signs up to work or be a parent for a "challenge" or dopamine release.
Does this make sense or are you talking about something else?
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Evan's spot on I think and the science may be something to do with the cascade from cortisol to endorphins. Which may be the endo signature of humility, if there is such a thing. Maybe it's possible to stay there.
@lobotomize-me said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
sounds good but as you mentioned it is hard to apply
@lobotomize-me said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
professional basketball
How's your anticipation of this. Pro's a lot of pressure right.
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@Corngold I agree with everything you said about needing to rebound from mistakes quickly. But I got confused by the last paragraph, I didn't understand its relevance to the topic
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@ThinPicking @evan-hinkle I understand that it may be cortisol, and if I can reduce that stress somehow, it would help me. But the problem is that I don’t know how. I need some kind of delusion, some kind of broken mind. Simply humiliating myself wouldn’t remove the pressure (I don’t even feel it, yet it affects me, revealing itself in my perception of the moment, as if I were a sheep in a cage) from me, as it has nothing to do with the game
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@lobotomize-me said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
I understand that it may be cortisol, and if I can reduce that stress somehow, it would help me. But the problem is that I don’t know how.
Maybe not so much the cortisol or the stress but what happens after. Suppose you wobble at the edge of a very high ledge, for a moment you think you're about to fall off and die but you don't. You know the feeling of relief.
I need some kind of delusion, some kind of broken mind.
Or a truth. You can get there. Don't stop trying.
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@lobotomize-me said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
I need some kind of delusion, some kind of broken mind.
THE INFINITE by Leopardi
Always to me beloved was this lonely hillside
And the hedgerow creeping over and always hiding
The distances, the horizon's furthest reaches.
But as I sit and gaze, there is an endless
Space still beyond, there is a more than mortal
Silence spread out to the last depth of peace,
Which in my thought I shape until my heart
Scarcely can hide a fear. And as the wind
Comes through the copses sighing to my ears,
The infinite silence and the passing voice
I must compare: remembering the seasons,
Quiet in dead eternity, and the present,
Living and sounding still. And into this
Immensity my thought sinks ever drowning,
And it is sweet to shipwreck in such a sea.Translated from the Italian of LEOPARDI by HENRY REED
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@ThinPicking the question is how can one reach that relief consistently through science or something one can replicate?
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Corngold's piece there is pretty good. Learn it by heart.
Other than that, this. Or the 'delusion' you went for first. Such is a big part of life after all.
@ThinPicking said in Why do I feel better after a break?:
Or a truth.
Who are you. Where are you. What the hell is going on. etc.
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@ThinPicking i cannot seem to understand the second part of your message
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You'll be like the office space guy in 3 days. Sleep well.
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@ThinPicking what in the heavens does that even mean
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On the one hand I'm fobbing you off for comedy. It's late you know.
On the other hand there's a guy in a film that appears to have been lobotomised by incomprehensible babble and aces everything thereafter.