Gils podcast

The podcast is about performance-related anxiety in athletes and how they cope with it. Gil Shaw and Cameron Snowden discuss their own experiences with anxiety and the importance of using mindfulness and positive affirmations to manage it. They both emphasize the need to stay present and focus on the task at hand. Mindfulness helps them relax and reduce their anxiety, leading to better performance. They encourage listeners to use these strategies and stay positive. Hey everyone, my name is Gil Shaw and I'm a part of the UNCW Swing and Dive team. I'm 18 years old from Charleston, South Carolina, and this podcast today will be about performance-related anxiety and the thinking dimension. The topic we will be discussing is performance-related anxiety and how athletes cope with this. I'll be interviewing Cameron Snowden to get first-hand information regarding this topic. Performance-related anxiety is extremely common with athletes and I tend to struggle with this as well. The dimension this topic is placed into is the thinking dimension because the thinking dimension has anxiety stemming from uncertain thoughts and worries. Because I struggle with performance-related anxiety, this topic is important to me and it helps me understand how to use mindfulness to cope with these anxieties and stresses. So, Cam, who are you, where are you from, and what do you swim? What's up, Gil? I am from California, but I will be moving to Wilmington so I'll be a local here. And I am part of the UNCW Swing and Dive team as well and I swim sprint freestyle and 100 butterfly. Nice, sounds good. Why did you choose to come to UNCW? I chose to come here because I was looking at a mid-major school and during my recruiting I was looking on the East Coast because I wanted to get out of California. And my friend from California, she moved to Raleigh, North Carolina about four years ago and I would consistently come out and visit for the summer. And I really fell in love with it, not only the summer, but year-round I fell in love with the area and just being on the East Coast a lot better than the West. So I decided to reach out to the head coach, shout out Bobby, and I am here now. Sounds great, we're so happy to have you. So Kim, do you struggle with performance-related anxiety and if so, how do you cope? Yeah, so I think performance-related anxiety is a very common thing, especially when you're in an intense sport like swimming. It really affects your mind during performance and in the water and out of the water. For me, it's races and even just simple practices, like you can feel the anxiety. For me, I came into UNCW with a lot of anxiety, but I learned to control it. I've had past mishaps in the water that built anxiety and I brought that with me to UNCW, but now that I'm here, I have found ways to cope with that and that's using mindfulness. The kind of mindfulness I use basically is just kind of being present. I've learned to not circulate over one feeling or thought that can decline my behavior and attitude towards swimming and that certain practice that I'll be going through. So I kind of just stay present in what's happening and what I have to be doing in that moment with the set or talking to a coach, just kind of focusing on what is in there now and not about other things. A couple practices that I do is just shutting out thoughts when my mind starts to wander and just kind of being mindful of my actions and making sure I'm giving myself positive affirmations in whatever I do. Regardless of it being bad or good, I just always try to stay more positive and it's kind of brought me back to the present. That's great. That's a really useful way to use mindfulness to help cope with anxiety. I also use mindfulness to cope with performance-related anxiety. I do the same thing. I try to stay present. I do regular motor functions just to relax myself. I'll walk just around the pool deck or I'll sit in one spot and just watch the water while I'm waiting for my race just to get my mind off of the stresses and worries about my upcoming event. And I do like the positive aspect. I've definitely started to use that more in college athletics. I used to be kind of negative back in high school with my swimming and once I came here I realized that you always have to be positive and always have to, like you said, give positive affirmations to yourself regarding your race or practice and it will always help you feel better no matter how you perform. And it always, for me, it reduces my anxiety significantly, which is a big deal because it's safe to have performance-related anxiety. Thank you everyone for listening to this podcast regarding performance-related anxiety. My name is Gil Shaw. And I'm Cam Snowden. We hope to see you sometime in the near future. If not, remember to use mindfulness and to always stay positive.