Image courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk
Bad day at the office?
In the Olympics, if you choke, it’s 4 years ’til your next review.
Canadian swimming psychologist Hap Davis made his athletes watch video re-runs of their failures on repeat and scanned their brains to see what was going on under the lid.
Initially when watching the video, high level blood flow to their amydala (responsible for emotions) and low-level to their motor cortices (where movement is executed). This likely reflected their physical reaction at the time.
Once they talked it through and explained the feelings of the race, he asked them to re-watch the race.
This time, blood flow to the amydala and pre-frontal cortex (which controls planning) was less, and blood flow to the motor cortex more.
Effectively, talking it out took away the negative emotion.
Who knew?
LittleGreyMatters 