“For some people, the reward is the driving force behind the habit. We’ve already established that powerful neurotransmitters cause a chemical reaction to reward the ritual and increase pleasure (dopamine) and/or feelings of happiness and positive mood (serotonin). However, other neurotransmitters may also be involved, like endorphins (which reduce stress and alleviate pain) or oxytocin (which increases a sense of trust and intimacy).”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“In contrast to dopamine-fueled feelings of pleasure, feelings of happiness are caused by another neurotransmitter—serotonin. Serotonin also helps create feelings of contentedness, significance, and importance. Among other functions, serotonin is a mood stabilizer. Sure, dopamine will give you the quick pleasure rush, but serotonin will keep you happy in the long term—a positive upbeat mood that chases the blues away.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“If we can just stick with new routines long enough to start cranking out the happy juice (serotonin) or find a way to make the experience intrinsically pleasurable (dopamine), we’ve got a much better chance of it becoming a long-term habit.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“The simple act of smiling makes you feel better because it causes dopamine to be released, the brain’s pleasure juice.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“There is now good scientific evidence that expressing appreciation for what you have has a remarkable effect on your self-judgment system and your overall well-being, most likely because it confronts negativity and increases the production of dopamine—your brain’s pleasure juice. Scientific studies have also revealed that the simple act of looking for things to be grateful for is as important as finding them.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Concentrating on the little things hidden in your daily routines and actions that you might otherwise take for granted. These positive droplets create a micro-squirt of dopamine (pleasure) and serotonin (happiness).”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“One of its primary roles is in motivation and reward. You probably know of dopamine because of its reputation as the brain’s pleasure juice. When you feel pleasure, you are getting squirted on by dopamine.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Reward. The feeling you get once you’ve done or are doing the behavior. For new behaviors that aren’t intrinsically pleasurable, you might need to pair a separate reward (something that does provide a dopamine squirt) with the new behavior so you still feel good after completion.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“A great way to open the dopamine floodgate is to watch and listen to inspirational stuff about the activity you are prone to quitting at. Unlike meme-turds, videos are a more immersive sensory experience, and virtually all capitalize on the dopaminergic power of music. Music has the ability to not just arouse pleasurable feelings but also increase craving or wanting—two critical elements of sports motivation.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“The neurological beauty of segmentation is that once the segment is completed, you get a mini-squirt of dopamine (pleasure juice) that resets the coping clock. Use this principle to your advantage by exploiting how your brain reacts to completion and accomplishment.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Powerful neurotransmitters in the brain can increase pleasure (dopamine), lead to feelings of happiness and positive mood (serotonin), reduce stress and alleviate pain (endorphins), and enhance a sense of trust and intimacy (oxytocin).”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Working with Lesley and Simon has been one of the biggest life-changing experiences.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“The one who can suffer the most will rise through the ranks of competition.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Your ability to suffer is known to depend on your awareness of when it will come to an end.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“When athletes are deceived about the amount of suffering that remains, perceived effort and exercise tolerance change.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“When you know a sufferfest is in the cards, do the exact opposite of trying not to think about it.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“When the suffering does come (and it will), we need to use mindfulness techniques (nonjudgmental awareness) to cope with it.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Suffering is a skill that needs to be learned the hard way.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“When we practice suffering we are reinforcing neural pathways associated with discomfort and behavioral persistence.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Think only about what the next few minutes hold. The more intense the suffer-challenge, the shorter the segments need to be.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“When you commit and act despite feeling a bit scared, when you side-step or clamber (however clumsily) over obstacles and setbacks, when you seek out adversity to learn from suffering, not despite it, and when you scour your world for tiny reminders of things to be grateful for in life, you are on your way.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“His family didn’t really care how he did; his wife just wanted him to enjoy his sport.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Pain acceptance skills are much more effective for pain management than pain suppression skills.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Classical or gentle massage causes a surge in oxytocin that reduces anxiety and pain perception.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“In pain management land, thumb tapping is simply a behavioral strategy to control attention and occupy working memory.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“High self-esteem and confidence come from experiencing adversity and accomplishment. In other words, confidence is earned, not given.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“High self-esteem and confidence come from experiencing adversity and accomplishment.”
“Focusing on the lives you’re helping to improve has such incredible therapeutic power that it’s on our list of “must dos” for athletes with low self-worth and low self-esteem. Anything that helps stick a plug in the self-spank system and refocus your attention on people who are not you.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Living in mental cruise control and making nothing but safe choices leads to boredom and complacency. A breakthrough in happiness, self-awareness, and mental toughness requires new experience.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Brave athletes aren’t perfect, but they know their “why,” believe in their ability, and know how to turn intentions into action.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Make a decision to control the controllables.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Being more forgiving of their bad decisions, or assuming their intentions must be good.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“The reason that success boosts confidence is that it changes your brain’s production and receptiveness to testosterone and dopamine—two chemicals that increase the impulse to try it again.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Breaking through the fear barrier is a big deal. The dopamine hit that comes with completing a previously insurmountable goal or getting through a shit-scary challenge is indescribable. Aside from the neurological benefits, you walk a little taller immediately. Confidence grows, and you redraw the boundary of what you think you can do in the future.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“The most powerful predictor of self-efficacy is “mastery experience,” a posh way of saying “actually being successful.” Successfully doing something, even if just once, has a tremendous effect on your self-efficacy. The reason that success boosts confidence is that it changes your brain’s production and receptiveness to testosterone and dopamine—two chemicals that increase the impulse to try it again.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“So when we talk about sky-high confidence, we’re not talking about those peeps. We’re talking about the athletes who are willing to put themselves out there, who can handle failure and criticism, take risks, rarely panic, and enjoy the challenge of getting stuck in. Developing self-confidence is an important first step in becoming a brave athlete.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Succeed through challenge and adversity builds confidence the correct way.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Recent research shows that something as simple as adopting a “power pose” for one minute increases testosterone, decreases cortisol, and increases feelings of power and tolerance for risk—important biological determinants of confidence. A power pose is simply body language that is open and expansive, with chest out, shoulders back, and eyes looking straight ahead.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Athletes who are willing to put themselves out there, who can handle failure and criticism, take risks, rarely panic, and enjoy the challenge of getting stuck in.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“When the suffering begins, our brain pleads with us to not think too far into the future. I can’t endure 60 minutes of this, but I can do 10 minutes. I can’t get through 8 weeks of solid exercise, but I can get through today. The neurological beauty of segmentation is that once the segment is completed, you get a mini-squirt of dopamine (pleasure juice) that resets the coping clock.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Uses powerful neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, acetylcholine, and noradrenaline to get your attention and move you to act.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“We can influence dopamine production through our diets. You can’t actually eat dopamine, but you can eat the thing that makes it—tyrosine. It is a nonessential amino acid, meaning that you must consume it in your diet because your body doesn’t make its own. However, before you start rushing out to the supermarket to get a cart full of tyrosine—cheese, soybeans, beef, lamb, pork, fish, chicken, nuts, seeds, eggs, dairy, beans, and whole grains—research shows that it really only helps if you’re deficient to begin with.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Classical or gentle massage (i.e., not the teeth-clenching, punchy kind) causes a surge in oxytocin that reduces anxiety and pain perception. Massage causes brain neurochemistry to change so you feel better emotionally. After massage, dopamine is up 31 percent and serotonin 28 percent, and the stress hormone cortisol drops. Simply put, massage is brain therapy for the injured athlete. So when you’re feeling especially crappy, schedule a massage. The gentler kind.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Feeling unmotivated or unprepared for tough sessions but doing them anyway.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“Enduring in the face of adversity and failure is likely to create neural, molecular, and hormonal changes in the brain that help you become better prepared, more adaptable, and more resistant in the future.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion
“It should come as no surprise that stressful situations become less stressful the more you get used to them. Psychologists call this cue desensitization—the process by which you experience a lower emotional response to a stimulus after repeated exposure to it. It’s the reason that seasoned pros can still perform well in front of thousands of spectators, why public speaking becomes easier and easier, and, ahem, why it only feels kinky the first time you do it. So stop avoiding things that scare you. The goal is to seek out opportunities to experience pressure and confront it head-on.”
Source: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion