052. 8 Research Proven Ways to Love Your Sport Again (or even more)
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While reading the book Creating Your Best Life by Caroline Adams Miller (buy it here), she talks about 8 research tested happiness boosters. As I was reading about them, I couldn’t help but think, “This applies to athletes loving their sports as well.” Whether you want to increase your love for the game or you’re looking to get it back, here are the 8 research proven ways to boost your happiness, sports edition.
8 Ways to Increase Happiness
Journaling
Putting our thoughts down on paper helps us gather perspective and is a way to be more objective with our emotions. Those that journal are more emotionally stable as it’s a way to make sure we don’t get on our high horse and stay out of the valley we sometimes put ourselves in. When journaling about a performance (good or bad), it helps to spark interest in what the future holds, helping us to work harder in the present moment to see that vision become a reality.
How do you do it? Check this video out.
Gratitude
Benefits of gratitude: Increase sport satisfaction, hope, and happiness. Decrease depression and anxiety. Great teams and great leaders are able to cast a vision and then do what they have to do to achieve it. When you’re practicing gratefulness, it makes that path a lot less bumpy as you’re not focused on the bumps, but the beautiful path you’re riding down. How do you do it? Check out that video from up above.
Physical Exercise
Most athletes don’t need to be told to work out anymore. It comes naturally and is woven into every athletes schedule, but do you know why working out makes you happier? Here’s the study that enlightened us all to why - it’s about the runner’s high. Dr. Henning Boecker at University of Bonn did a PET scan of the brain’s of distance runners after they were done running. What he found was that their brains were COURSING with endorphins (the feel good hormones). Want to feel good? Workout. How do you do it? YouTube.
Volunteer work and altruistic behavior
Helping others helps you. In other words, improving your life is a by product of working to make other’s lives better. How do you do it? One quick altruistic behavior you can take part in - grab a bag and go outside and pick up garbage. Fill up one bag, and I guarantee you’ll be a different person by the time it’s over.
Soak in the good
When something good happens, don’t just let that moment slip away. Capitalize on it! Sit there and feel the good, experience the good, and soak it in. Since we are born with a negativity bias, it’s easy for us to soak in the bad. It’s not as easy to soak in the good. We have to consciously work at it and when something good happens, we have to give it 10-15 seconds to truly digest and take hold inside of our brains. After a hit, soak in in. After a made shot, soak it in.
How do you do it? Another way to do this is to use your memory and think back on an occasion. This isn’t revolutionary, but one study showed that by holding a memory in your hand like a picture of that moment, while you visualize it, helped you to “savor” that memory and increased levels of happiness. So print out a picture of you hitting the game winning shot or even of Michael Jordan, and immerse yourself in that moment.
Quit holding grudges
Here’s the thing about forgiving others. It could potentially save your life. One study found that while talking about a past injustice with the researcher, those that were able to forgive had an elevated heart rate while talking with the researcher, but then it returned to normal afterwards. Those that could not forgive, had an elevated heart rate during, and then a prolonged increased heart rate even after the conversation had subsided. It’s not good to be walking around with an elevated heart rate all of the time. That leads to illness, depression, and cardiac problems. When you’re in a team sport, it leads to not being your best when it means the most, which is out there on the field. If you’re sick all of the time and pissed off at yourself, your teammates, or your coach, then you’ll never truly love your sport.
How do you do it? Write a letter forgiving that person, then burn the letter. How do you do it differently? Write who you’re forgiving on a watermelon, then throw it off the roof of a tall building. GUARANTEED you’ll feel better after this one.
Applying your strengths
Double down on your strengths. Your strengths are probably why you’re where you’re at, not your weaknesses.
How do you do it? Write down your top 3 strengths in your sport and then double and triple down on those. You’re fast? Get faster. You have high bat speed? Make it faster. Do you think at a higher level than your peers? Teach them.
Meditation
Those that meditate experience pleasurable changes in their happiness, health, relationship quality, empathy, and resilience. They have more rewarding interactions with others, more energy, less stress, and greater empathy for themselves and others. We (Americans) spend 144 minutes on social media per day on average, most of us tearing ourselves down by comparing ourselves to others, but we won’t spend 5-10 minutes per day to experience all the positive benefits of meditation because we’re too busy.
How do you meditate? Watch the video below
