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Hello and welcome to the Tennis IQ Podcast. I'm Josh Berger and I'm Brian Lomax and today Josh and I are going to talk a little bit about the brain and some neuroscience to help all of you understand your experiences on the tennis court a little bit more deeply and perhaps to also improve maybe your actions, your emotions that you want to experience in certain situations.
I think understanding how the brain actually works and how emotions actually work in the brain will give us some practical things that we can talk about that all of you can start to practice
a bit more on the court. I think Josh, as we get into this a little bit more, a lot of what we're going to concentrate on in today's episode, we have discussed at various points in different episodes but I think this episode is going to really try to tie it together in terms of brain evolution and a little bit more scientific backing on neuroscience and really how the brain
does work, how emotions are conceptualized and actually created and so forth. So I think the first thing that we want to discuss is and maybe this is a bit of a myth-busting with respect to the brain is this idea that how the brain evolved and there's a very classical theory that I think
both Josh and I learned in grad school that has been thoroughly debunked for a while but it's still the most popular explanation for how the brain evolved in that it started off with a kind of a tiny reptilian brain and then layered on top of that was more than mammalian brain which which is then considered to have the emotions of humans and then layered on top of that is the prefrontal cortex which is where a lot of the reasoning and higher order thinking are.
And this is referred to very often as the triune brain because it's in three parts and unfortunately this is not how the brain actually developed you know and we so we were both looking at an article I thought kind of a fascinating title that your brain is not an onion with a tiny reptile inside
and so our brains did not develop in those kind of three stages and it was kind of a very different evolutionary process and I think you know this is Josh you mentioned this earlier this is probably the model that you learned in grad school this is definitely the model that I learned in grad school
and we always talk about how you know there's a fear center in the amygdala and that detects threats and then it sends all this information out and it's not exactly how it works and so you know I'd like to you know we both read this paper I think we both have understood for a while
that this model is not correct but what's your assessment of the paper what did you like about it yeah just give me your your sense of you know sort of brain evolution how it really happened etc. well yeah I thought that was very very interesting I think this is a very interesting article and
we'll we'll link to that and yeah it absolutely differs from my experience in grad school and it sounds like same with same with yours and I think the the way that you know by and large things are still being taught where you know instead of this model of sort of the three you know the three
aspects of the brain being layered on top of each other that there really is more of a comprehensive evolutionary process that's that's taken place um you know rather than us you know having that that little reptile inside us that you know still comes out every now and then um you know
I think we can we can see things in a different way one aspect of the article that I found interesting was where they talked about um you know delayed gratification versus immediate gratification and they brought up the marshmallow study um which you know famous uh you know famous well uh well
referenced um study where people you know kids have the ability to have one marshmallow now versus two marshmallows later and you know talking about how it it often really isn't that simple right there they're can you know they're both can be benefits of having you know actually having that
marshmallow now right we don't necessarily know the circumstances whether that kid had eaten earlier that day how much sleep they'd had what their environment is like um which I think actually starts to tie into what we'll talk about next which is you know the theory of constructed emotions how
you know emotions are essentially learned over time in the environmental impact that that leads them as well I think it's a good point Josh about the marshmallow test and anybody wants to watch that there are some amusing videos out there of kids uh trying to hold out with a marshmallows staring
them in the face and like you said how do we know when these kids last eight or how you know were they in a good mood um what was their last interaction with a parent or somebody else you know there's so many variables that go into it that I think uh have now sort of invalidated to a certain degree
that experiment right and anything that they learned about kids who were able to delay gratification um because as you know we're gonna talk about now uh when we when we get into how emotions are actually constructed and created for for us much of this depends on our energy levels or
what Lisa Felman Barrett calls your body's budget and we're we're really gonna rely on some of her work here so there's a paper we'll link to called the theory of constructed emotions and to be honest it's quite academic um but I would also refer listeners to her two books um which are how emotions
are made and seven and a half lessons about the brain and these are much you know are really more for the lay person to to understand and I think again have very helpful when it comes to understanding how emotions are truly created because in in my opinion Josh this actually gives us
some really good reasons for learning more and more through experience and also training our minds to to think better to have better ideas behind how we think so I'm just gonna state like maybe one of the premises of the whole theory Josh and then we can get into it a little bit more
right so maybe some backstory I first learned of Lisa Felman Barrett through Dan Abraham's podcast the sports like show so she was interviewed there and so the theory of constructed emotions says that the brain is not a stimulus response machine meaning that emotions are not a response or
reaction to what occurs instead the brain is a prediction machine and based and what it's using as um it's really prediction modeling is your inner model of the world we all have an inner model of the world and that process actually begins in the womb we start as we interact with our
mothers we start to develop this this inner model of how things work and then that develops over time through social interactions experience etc and so it creates essentially a prediction of how we believe the world works and that's a very individual thing how we believe the world works
and so when you are confronted in a situation your brain is running through a series of prediction models based on its own modeling based on its own experience and then it will land on something whether you know action oriented emotion oriented and it comes up with its best guess in terms
of like what what is required but certain things also go into that um like you were mentioning Josh with the the marshmallow test um you know when's the last time you ate how good was your sleep so your body's budget in terms of energy needs sleep needs maybe even survival needs um you
know think about a tennis match it also is interpreting different bodily sensations so you're feeling butterflies in your stomach hmm well how how how does your brain want to interpret that in this moment and all of those things are factored into the prediction which then creates
emotion um so I just want to stop there Josh do you feel like I have explain that well enough clearly enough before before we kind of move on and see how we can use this yeah I absolutely know I think you I think you did a good job of uh yeah explaining that and again uh you know some
of this as you did through it can feel more on the academic side so I think you um yeah I think you explained that in a and I helpful way so let's talk a bit about then some practical implications of this knowing that this is really about how our minds predict how our brains predict what will happen versus how we react to me this gives us the ability to teach ourselves better ways of perceiving the world I think it actually gives us a little bit more agency than just believing that like oh
that's just how I react to certain things um when I was in in grad school doing my doctoral um program I had to my final project was something called a theoretical orientation to performance excellence which was basically a fancy way of saying all right how does how do you think performance
works what what leads to good performance what what inhibits good performance and at the time Josh I felt like when I started the program I was a uh a practitioner in search of a theory that backed up what I thought so like when I wrote my book back in 2018 it was kind of based on this but
I didn't know about this theory I believed that you could kind of think your think better ways into better performance because that was what I had experienced when I played you know on sort of on the national adult tour back in the early to early 2000s um my whole career changed because of
the way I thought I changed how I thought so I thought that all right that that if it works for me I'm not a unicorn clearly I think I could help other people learn to think differently and you know obviously different people have different challenges with that but by and large that's been a
very successful approach so I based my whole theoretical orientation to performance excellence on this theory along with you know doing practical things routines um visualization you know self-talk etc right um and so I wanted to so using this theory I started to develop a whole kind of theory
of practice around around this and my you know my experience I guess or my um you know I guess my experience with clients is that when players have really bought into thinking differently the results have been very very positive so to me this did like I said this gives us some agency in terms of
our ability to to train our minds um and I think for me that's a practical thing we can obviously get into how how one does that um but I would imagine even in you know in your work is well Josh that you're working on how athletes think whether we call it mindset attitude philosophy
whatever right you're really working on their mental model of the world that can then help them perform better in in tough situations certainly yeah and I think you know I think it all starts with an athlete believing that that can change right I think if if athletes see their attitude or
their mindset is more fixed um then you know then or or maybe doesn't recognize the importance of the work in the first place then it's a lot harder to make change but I think when when an athlete recognizes that yeah there are ways of thinking are malleable or flexible and can change and can
improve over time then it sort of lays that foundation for a lot of the later work that that that we can do so I I absolutely agree and I think yeah you know I sort of break it down into um some of the bigger picture concepts whether it be confidence or motivation or resilience or
things like that with some of those specific tools things that you brought up things like visualization or self-talk or routines or breathing or whatever it may be um but I think that that all of it really relates to to this relates to the ways that um you know we can start to
not only see the world in different ways but you know think in better ways and I think when it comes to emotions we could try to be more aware of of our emotions as they're arising but also under you know also be able to put them into context also understand that our emotions are based on our
past experiences right like uh right you know let's say you're playing a certain type of player that you have struggled against in the past or even a certain player that you've struggled against in the past or had certain negative experiences playing them um that you know that when certain
sorts of emotions arise which they likely will um I think it can be really helpful to put that into context and to understand where those are coming from and understand the the impact that that the past had on those emotions that are arising currently um and you know just like we talked about
the impact of the environment when it comes to you know not not only the environment but the the immediate past when it comes to the marshmallow test right the the impact of whether somebody ate earlier that that day or the impact of the sleep that they got the same goes for the emotions
that come up in the decisions that you make during a tennis match right what what's the impact of um you know whether you had eaten or not earlier that day um what's the impact of the last time that you played this particular player what's the impact of that line call that you
disagreed with from last game right so I think it's you know it helps us see the bigger picture and put things into context quite a bit more for sure and I think yeah as we go through this it's not just how you think as well right there there's um I'll refer to this as like a bio psycho
social approach which sounds very fancy very often used by sports psychologists but let's let's break that down a little bit more and um there's a uh neuroscientist in Australia named Dr. Sarah McKay and she has kind of reframed that into what she calls a bottom up outside in top down approach
so bottom up is the biology part right the bio the outside in is the social part how we are affected by that and then the top down is the mind part the the psycho piece and I think we can look at when it comes to our emotions and how they're generated we can look at all three of
those to see and to understand how they go into an athlete's performance because we we're kind of you know talking a little bit more about the psycho part right the the mind part that top down um but there is a biological aspect to how athletes perform we mentioned earlier um you know did
you get a good night it's rest so you might have for instance same opponent at 8 a.m. you know in in a couple of different tournaments and based on whether you got a good night sleep or not different emotions may be constructed for you in that moment so same athlete same opponent
same time of day but one variable sleep changes how things are so this is your your brain is not necessarily always constructing these same emotions in the same situation um it's really understanding what's happening with your body in that moment and then it's constructed in the moment
so it's not kind of a fixed thing um you know the outside in part is a lot of the the social piece right how we're raised by our parents or peers what we hear from coaches um you know our social interactions a big part of who we are and then you know the the top down being that that
psychology part so I think you know whenever you have an experience just like you were saying you're playing a pusher and maybe you notice afterwards say I reacted in this way right approach it with curiosity approach it in this um in this kind of three part model biopsychosocial you know right
bottom up outside in top down look at each one of those and see what factors may have played a part in constructing you know how you um how you were emotionally in this match how you were you know with your game and then then you can build on that right I think the idea that
we approach each of our matches with curiosity and really wanting to learn from the experience will only improve our prediction models and and to me that's really the big thing here is can we become better predictors of the world we're always predicting fear and threat and negative
outcomes and we never approach that with curiosity and and we just accept it then it will be very hard to progress as a player but if we can be more curious and understanding that our experience just builds and builds and builds and we're constantly have this ability to improve then we can
make real changes to our game and we can really progress as players definitely definitely I think I think this relates to to you know to to different things I mean I think this idea of you know of a growth mindset of you know us being able to yeah to change our ways of thinking to
improve our ways of thinking and to you know to to be more aware of you know of of of where some of these emotions come from right to understand that they're not just popping up out of nowhere right that that there is you know we're adding context to the situation understanding that
you know how you slept has an impact understanding that what you ate before you know before the match has an impact understanding that you're your past against you know this player or other similar players of a similar playing style has an impact so I think all of that is helpful context so that
you know because I think that what what often happens is somebody has an emotion and then they they start to maybe be judgmental or critical of that emotion okay I you know I I missed a shot and I got angry and then I'm critical of myself for getting angry in that situation rather than
really being able to you know see the big picture and understand where that anger came from understanding that there's nothing you know inherently bad about getting upset or being angry it's more about okay how are we how do those emotions actually you know what is the impact that they
actually have okay if I'm getting angry you know what is that how does that impact how I approach the next point as that impact my body language and the you know what my opponents is or what the fan see or whatever it may be so I think it helps to you know it helps us draw a bigger picture it helps us understand that you know these these emotions these thoughts these you know the decisions that we make are all you know are all we're able to see them in the bigger picture we're able to put
but all of that into context which I think is really important I think Roger Federer is actually a good example of this Josh you know we just had an episode about his commencement address at Dartmouth and you know he admits that he you know maybe didn't really figure out his mental game for about
three years on the tour and had had a pretty bad temper but then you know the Roger Federer that most of us remember is this kind of calm cool collected guy who as one of his lessons at Dartmouth was you know it's just a point when it points over you you put it behind you clearly that was not
something he had at the beginning of his career but he learned that and was able to change how he thought about points so that he could then be a better player and I think is you know that's is that can everybody do that I think they can it's whether or not you want to because we do see
still some professional players who have very negative reactions after points and are perhaps maybe not informed or don't believe that they can change how they think and I think I think Roger is a great example of someone who spent three years on the tour struggling with his emotions
something clicked for him and he was able to to change that and then then his career kind of hockey stick on as the growth curve and he became you know one of the greatest players in the history of the game so I think that you know how do we begin to do some of this you know this type
of training I think that there are various ways of exposing yourself to new ways of thinking I you know we we have talked a lot about philosophy stoicism existentialism Buddhism other philosophical traditions doing that reading to me Josh that's been a something significant for my own learning
is to make sure I'm reading stuff like that on a daily basis I think you know really understanding how you talk yourself and doing that in productive ways writing certain things how you want to think and then reading that over and over again really recalling some of those things
because we want to in a way build new neural pathways on new ways of thinking because I think just like you know your forehand and your brain has a certain motor program right certain set of neurons that fire in a network whenever you hit a particular forehand and ways of thinking are that way also
and to change how we think we have to begin to build new networks of neural pathways and that needs repetition it needs recall so that it can then learn to become you know maybe the the first way that we think rather than the second way um some curious you know what what are
some things that have worked for you Josh in terms of you know how you think how you learn that that players could also apply to what they're doing yeah I mean I think that I think there's a number of different things here I mean I think that as it relates to you know our learning
it that there's there's different things that can help I think having some sort of a reflection process can be can be really key you talked about um you know writing things down beforehand which is definitely key but I think also having some sort of process after the fact you know some sort of way
to reflect on our experiences recognize what we did well out there you know how do we apply some of our tools that we have recognized areas of improvement recognize learnings or takeaways you know aha moments whatever it may be um I think that can be you know really helpful so that we can
you know so that we're not just going through the going through the process of you know playing a match playing the next match playing the match after that and not necessarily make any changes I think when we can reflect on it it really helps us to you know to to really gain a bigger picture
of what actually happened I think you know what I often see with with athletes is we'll talk about maybe a recent performance and they'll go in with sort of a simplistic understanding of what happened out there oh I played terribly or oh I you know it was a big point and somebody made a
line you know a line call I disagree with um or or I played great but I think going through a reflection process helps them to paint a bigger picture of you know of the whole story generally you know there's always going to be things you did well even if you lost six loves six loves
um so I think that reflection process is is definitely important I think yeah there's a lot that you can do as you prepare for matches as well you talked about writing things down I think even you know having a game plan for the types of self-talk that you want to use out there can be
really important um I think this is important because I think it you know if we can have a clear intention for the type of self-talk we want to use then we can I think you can bring more awareness out where we can start to recognize be more aware of our self-talk as we're using it and say okay
is this form of self-talk the way that I want to be talking to myself or is it you know is it maybe hurting me in certain ways and then we can I think get better at sort of catching ourselves when we're not using our best you know using self-talk that's actually helpful um again that being
you know something that's actually within our control so um yeah I think that you know going into a match there are a number of different things that we can prepare and you know things like self-talk things like you know what whether it's our visualization process whether it's you know even just
reviewing okay what do I want to do between points do I have that solid game plan for routine and maybe uh you know a yellow light or red light routine as well so I think that to answer your question I think that there are a number of different um processes that we can go about um both before
during and after we play to help ourselves to um you know to to learn from different experiences right I mean I think you know even that preparation stage is a lot about um you know us applying past learning so right applying past learnings from let's say again self-talk if we're sticking
with that example we can think about okay how do I want to talk to myself out there today um and you know I've planned this out based on past ways that I've talked to myself in better or worse ways um so I think that there's a lot of different tools that people can apply that can
that can really help with this for sure and I think you mentioned preparation making sure that our energy needs are are there right so that's not as as much of a variable as it could be um that's why we emphasize sleep so much with our clients um try to emphasize good nutrition as much as we can
because that does make a a huge difference for players right and these are some variables that they can bring in under control that can help to then normalize our our brains predictions in certain moments rather than being variable themselves that leaves us open to variability in terms of what
emotions are going to be constructed in those in those times um you know and then one thing we haven't really talked about so much Josh yet is like you know just body aches and pains can also potentially play a factor uh maybe an injury play a factor in in terms of uh what kinds of emotions
that will be constructed in that moment um you know think about you know we're uh you know at Wimbledon you know Alex Dima and R had to pull out of the quarter finals against Novak Jokovic and he was making a you know uh a calculated bet that if he goes out there it could you
know this could be several months off the tour versus you know just a few weeks and that that's that was probably a very hard decision for him you know playing Novak Jokovicon at Wimbledon in the in the quarter finals so you know it's things like that that um you have factor into our minds
uh you know how our bodies are feeling so one I'll share one exercise that I have used in addition to what you brought up Josh that can help athletes prepare for their upcoming competition and I like to use this when an athlete is having some level of anxiety about an upcoming event
and uh the name of the exercise is the story of your next performance and the idea is to essentially write a story you know with the setting and a plot and characters mainly you and you'll be others in there um and you're gonna write about you know your preparation you're gonna write about
the performance and you you'll include different aspects of it from a you know a psychology and emotional perspective like motivation confidence challenge mindset and so there's a whole list of things in an outline for you to choose from to make sure you include and the idea is that you you
write this story and then you you read it to yourself each day or you listen to it you could even rewrite it each day as a way of recalling it uh and the idea is to help you move how you're thinking about this event to something that will be more more productive um when we're very anxious
about an event we're probably perceiving it to be more of a threat than it really is you know like we mentioned in our episode about irrational beliefs and irrational self-talk there really is no half-dewin match there is no must-win match yet a lot of that uh is created the that thinking is
created you know when we're looking forward to a match and there's some anxiety about it it's uncertain what could happen and our brain begins to you know use those types of phrases which are can be beneficial again in an existential situation but generally tennis matches are not the
you know the consequences are not existential um and so when we use this you know the story of your next performance in a way you're teaching yourself a better way to think in preparation for that event and I think you can start that like a week or two weeks ahead and and still get some benefit
if you know you're engaging with that that each day um you know so I think story writing is really powerful we'll we may have a future episode on on that topic soon but anybody is familiar with Dr. Jim Lair he has a great book the power of story um and how writing these things and telling yourself new stories can really help you perform better and construct better emotions.
Yeah and I really like that that exercise that that that you brought up Brian I think that that sounds like definitely something that that people can use um to me it I think there's a lot of similarities there with the visualization process um and you know mental rehearsal I mean I
you know I'll do somewhat similar exercise where people can you know pick a certain aspect of their performance maybe it's the preparation stage maybe it's you know fighting off a break point or something like that and again write it out right sort of tell a story of how you're handling that
moment right maybe it's um you know maybe it's a big point in the tiebreaker and you're feeling you're feeling nervous you're feeling anxious or you're frustrated from the last point but you're essentially talking through okay this is how I am handling that moment this is how I'm
talking to myself this is the my routine that I'm using this is some of those different pieces and tools that I'm applying and okay then what was the result of that and you know as we're sort of telling that story we're trying to make it as realistic as we can adding in senses
emotions things like that adding in so specific details to really try to bring ourselves into that moment but no I really like that that idea because I think you know when when we can mentally rehearse the situation when we can essentially tell a story to ourselves about a situation
it you know we can it helps people be able to see that they that they can do something right and I think it's it's an it's an excellent way to to help prepare for a situation that's coming up um because I think it helps them sort of set that intention for how they want a situation to go
and how they plan to use not just you know it's not about manifesting something or you know hoping that that something's going to happen a certain way it's more so you know rehearsing it or or coming up with a game plan for how you want to use use the tools and you know use the tools
that are at your disposal my first experience with this Josh actually was when I was playing a 12 and under tournament at our club the club is uh as in Riverside Rhode Island sees Providence Rhode Island and I was playing in the 12 and under final against this guy named Steve Sapolsky
so Steve and I lived in the same town in Barrington Rhode Island we went to high school together Steve's a great coach works at tennis Rhode Island in East Perrovenance and at the time Steve was one of the best 12 and under players in New England I was not and you know when I reached
the final there was like a week between the semi and the and the final and I my my initial thinking was I'm gonna get killed and I remember my dad you know helping me that week change how I thought about it you know and in a way it was almost like he was brainwashing me into believing I could win
and so as the week went along and maybe I was you know I was 11 at the time I was a year younger than the Steve um you know maybe I was a little bit more malleable at that time I started to buy into it and I even told a few people you know at the club that I could win and they're looking at me like
no way right but um but I went into the match with such of a better mindset and I remember the first point of the match and at the time I had a two handed backhand a little bit weaker than my my forehand and Steve in an approach shot to my backhand and I ripped a cross court passing shot which I
almost never did and I was like wow that like that was amazing now I ended up losing I didn't get killed but I ended up losing the match anyway but it would it was so much better than if I'd gone in believing I was gonna lose right if I had gone in with that attitude I probably would have lost
oh no but I ended up losing something like maybe four and two a much better performance than then I had anticipated so yeah I learned at a very early age that you can change how you think about a future event and you can change it in a way that will help you to um to perform better because
whether I believed I could win or not in that situation it didn't matter uh you know it's like I had to justify my believing I could win so what if I believe I could win I believe I could win if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen um but you know I'm not gonna be called into like a court
of law for thinking something irrationally like that we all have to learn how our own minds work and talk to ourselves in ways that are productive and helpful to what we want to do and so I think you know for me the the the gist of this episode is to really understand that what
everything that goes into the creation of emotions right so it's a biology part to it there's a social world part to it that has you know an affected your own internal model of how the world works and then there's a top down piece to it there's a psychology part to it and all
of these things when we understand emotions in performance with those three things in mind we can have some real agency around how we work on those and and and make them better so that we can we can perform better overall um and then and just be great learners so um any last thoughts
Josh on on these two concepts no I mean I think people can one one thing that that comes to mind is you know people can maybe think back to a recent match that they played and maybe think about some of the emotions that came up in that match um right maybe yeah maybe there was anger that
arose maybe there was frustration maybe there was you know nerves anxiety whatever it may be you may be more positive emotions as well but can you try to think about it and sort of you know think about the different factors that could have led to that as well okay did I get a did I
actually get a good night's sleep before I played you know what was the impact of the opponent that I was playing how was the weather that day did it was I playing in 95 degree he right um can we see the bigger picture by understanding um by actually understanding the context and some of
those different factors that could have impacted um that the performance that particular day and I think you know if we can again we talked about reflection earlier if we can reflect on our you know on different experiences where we've experienced some of these different sorts of emotions I think
it helps us to to gain a better understanding of it as well for sure so that's a good way to to wrap it up uh thank you Josh for this really interesting conversation on this and I hope listeners got some practical tools that they could use you know and understand the theory of constructive
emotions a bit a bit better so that's our show for today thank you all for listening for more on today's episode please check out the show notes if you have any feedback or questions for the two of us please email us at tenis iq podcast at gmail.com also if you're enjoying the content that Josh and
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