The problem with Schumacher, the pilot who has won the most in the history of Formula 1, is in his inability to accept a different role than that of the live pilot. Every person knows that it is not easy to leave a job where you have been the No.1 for many years but there comes a time when you have to change your life. The difficulty lies in wanting to make a life different from the previous one and not to feel inwardly able to know how to do. It ‘s a situation worsened farfrom the extreme economic well-being that it would greatly expand the options to choose, but not in this case. Schumacher has not been able to choose and he did the easiest thing he could: to race again. At this point he really is alone just much more than when running at 300 per hour and he must explore a land that he does not know without any guide that is not his psychological sensitivity and, I hope, the love of his family and true friends . For us mere mortals it seems impossible that such a rich and successful guy have ended up in this trap, but this situation proof once again that money is not everything. He will embark on a journey to the center of himself to find out who he is now and what he wants to be happy.
Monthly Archive for September, 2012
Speaking to young sport psychologists often I say that beyond the content they want to develop, the objective of the consultant process in sports is that our business must be perceived by coaches and athletes as useful. Years ago Autogenic Training was very popular and was often taught to athletes, who learned to relax but often not perceived usefulness in relation to their performances. Sometimes athletes who met told me: “A colleague learned me to relax, but then I stopped because I did not understand what it needed.” Athletes are people oriented to practice, evaluating the effectiveness of training depending on the results that can be achieved. The psychologists are too often geared to demonstrate theircompetences and sometimes they are rigid in the application of the techniques. So, for example,it is expected to reduce the competitive stress through relaxation or to improve the concentration only through mental rehearsal. They should instead develop a program of mental training based on the needs of the athlete and in relation to sport practiced. In addition, the athletes are pragmatic people, who appreciate those who provide them tasks to practice, being able to test their utility during training. Task of the psychologists must be to propose activities that they consider to be perceived as useful, for the reason they are intended to improve at least one aspect of the sport performances. Anything that does not produce this effect will be stored by the athlete as an interesting experience but useless. Then:
- Listen to the athlete and / or coach
- Understand their needs
- Understanding these requirements to which behaviors are
- Assume in what way and with what techniques these behaviors can be learned / improved
- Determine which are the parameters for which you can say that this has been achieved
- Share this journey with the athlete training
- Put in place and whether and how to correct
- Evaluate their own work (during and after)
I’s today news that the Quarterly Report on economic and social situation of the European Commission gives to Italy the first place for job losses and reduced earnings of families. We are a country on the ropes like a boxer that someone claims to drop permanently to the ground. We are a country in which not only there is less work and earns but at too much people lack the health, because they ruin with junk food or eating excessive amounts of food. This phenomenon has a very high social cost per year, amounting to 8.3 billion, corresponding to 6.7% of public costs that it is lost in health care, mainly for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but also for dieticians and psychologists (in Use the cost of obesity to the State affects 9% of the total medical spending, 147 billion dollars). Costs that can only get worse: in 2025 it is expected that 43% of adults will be obese. The war for the dissemination of a wellness culture is possible to do it but nobody in Italy talks about. It has no special cost, does not require agreements between the social parts, does not require that the European economic situation changes, it is irrelevant to the value of the spread. I wonder if anyone, from the ministry of health, do anything because this issue is not political battleground that is the main art practiced by the politiciens or because the governement in Rome as in the regions do not understand or they minimize this issue concerning the health of the citizens. It could also be that the idea of improving diet and to promote the diffusion of the physical activity are solutions so trivial that it is believed that every person should be able to find the best solution for him/her-self.
The Italian situation
| HOW MANY OBESES
4 MILLIONS OF ADULTS +25% COMPARED TO 1994 |
REGIONS WITH MORE OBESES
MOLISE 12.8% CAMPANIA 11.2% |
GENDER
MALES 9.2% FEMALES 8.8% |
| WHERE THEY LIVE IN ITALY
NORTH 7.8% CENTER 7.9% SOUTH 10.8% ISLANDS 9.5% |
AGE
18-24 YEARS 11.6% 45-54 YEARS 12.4% 55-64 YEARS 14.4% 65-74 YEARS 14.2% |
CHILDREN OBESES OR OVERWEIGHT
ITALY 36% SPAIN 27& SWITZERLAND 24% ENGLAND 20% FRANCE 19% GERMANY 14% |
Thinking of the day. David Seabury, American psychologist, wrote in 1937, “We are able to use the experience more or less like a worm is able to dance on pointe?”
It’s finished a few days ago a bike tour of people with diabetes with the project “BiciCuoreDiabete” went from Milan in Italy to Walkerburg in Belgium along 1309 km. The goal has been to raise awareness about the importance of physical activity to prevent and treat diabetes. In fact, the most common form of diabetes is linked to a sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet, which causes this disease in over40 especially if overweight or obese. A correct diet and regular physical activity would lead to a reduction of up to 40% of cases of diabetes. The movement is still very useful also in persons already ill, because it increases the ability of cells to absorb glucose. The bike seems to be the sport of excellence not only it is and aerobic activity but also because it is a sport not traumatic, not as the running that is not indicated in adults, sedentaries and overweight.
In Italy there is the economic crisis but fortunately not in ultramarathon and ultratrail. To date, there are 13,224 finisher in ultra races against 10,874 in 2011 (the first year that has passed the 10,000 finishers) then 21.61% higher and it is more than three months at the end of the year.
It could be achieved an increase of about 38%. It can be said that the race of long-term fascinates more and more athletes and it is growing fast. Upon closer inspection of the data reveals that women have increased more than men and they are 25.94% compared to 21.02% of the males. Women prefer trails, an increase of 34.82% compared to 16.74% of road races. Men are almost constant as the increase of the trail is equal to 21.14% against 21.43% in the road.
Another finding concerns the proportion between road and trail races finisher, these were almost equal in 2010 with 4127 in the trail and 4162 on the road, then in 2011 went to 6074 (55.86%) on the trail finisher and 4800 (44.14 %) on the road. This year and up to now there are 7420 (56.11%) on the trail finisher and 5804 (43.89%) on the road.
These numbers are very positive for the Italian movement, but we must remember that in France, where the movement is more developed and more advanced control systems, in 2009 recorded 32,500 finisher at least one ultra race, while in Italy, if we calculate that on average an athlete runs 1.9 of ultra races a year, we have about 8,000 athletes.
These data are interesting and reveal how ultra races involving thousands of runners, it is no longer a phenomenon for a few. What should we think of us psychologists? How to explain this phenomenon? Is the demonstration of the masochism of the human soul, therefore, a negative conception of the individual? Or is it an attempt to know and expand our limits attending at an extreme test, but where there is no risk of life?
(data by www.krakatoasport.com)
It is needless to say that there are too many other 13 deaths to climb a 8,000 belonging to all commercial expeditions. Nives Meroi, one the strongest alpinists, said that the way they were doing was so dangerous that she climbed Manaslu by following another more energetic but more secure. Death is always with climbers but here it was around the corner: 0 celsius degrees to 6,000m a few days ago, heavy snowfall and know that this is an area of avalanches. Some may say that then you should not go there. I believe that everyone is free to make their own choices, but how can those who participate in trading expeditions, whose goal is to bring all to the top and not to turn back if conditions are bad. The issue has long been the same: the goal is the top and not the lives of the clients. These are rarely experienced climbers and then leave their live in the hands of their leaders, they paid a lot of money and do not want to give up. They do not realize the dangers, because they have been told that they are led to the top. Their narcissism prevents them from thinking, to ask and receive answers. The managers of commercial expedtions remind me of hawkers in the 1800 selling small bottles containing wonder drugs. Here it’s the same: images of other customers at the top and beautiful pictures, but nothing about the real dangers. To increase the tragedy, there is a large number of people who carry commercial expeditions at high altitude, this time they were 35, and then the tragedy is even more frightening to the large number of people involved. Unfortunately, nothing will change and then get ready for more news like this.
It is now clear why psychologists do not work iwith Italian football teams, because the real psychologists are the coaches. Also this year reading the interviews of the coaches should be noted immediately that they speak almost exclusively of games that “must be evidence of maturity,” “should be played with determination”, “need to be addressed with the mentality of the provincial.” Rarely speak of the match, some even get angry when they are asked questions like this, because they consider it an invasion of a field of their exclusive property. It’s clear that the mentality of a team is a crucial aspect that allows to put into action the play that you want to lead, it is equally true that every coach plays an important psychological as commander in chief of the team. What I’m wondering is: are all born learned? Or is it enough that they have learned on the field in their football career to develop professional the best leadership style? Is itpossible that the younger coaches just starting out do not feel the need to be trained to manage the stress that generates the lead of a group? Maybe to earn a lot of money makes them feel invincibles? Coaches fired from the Clubs never feel the need to confront their personal doubts?
You could continue with these questions, the answer is NO.
“For generations of Americans, it was a given that children would live longer than their parents. But there is now mounting evidence that this enduring trend has reversed itself for the country’s least-educated whites, an increasingly troubled group whose life expectancy has fallen by four years since 1990.
Researchers have long documented that the most educated Americans were making the biggest gains in life expectancy, but now they say mortality data show that life spans for some of the least educated Americans are actually contracting. Four studies in recent years identified modest declines, but a new one that looks separately at Americans lacking a high school diploma found disturbingly sharp drops in life expectancy for whites in this group. Experts not involved in the new research said its findings were persuasive.
The reasons for the decline remain unclear, but researchers offered possible explanations, including a spike in prescription drug overdoses among young whites, higher rates of smoking among less educated white women, rising obesity, and a steady increase in the number of the least educated Americans who lack health insurance.
The steepest declines were for white women without a high school diploma, who lost five years of life between 1990 and 2008, said S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the lead investigator on the study, published last month in Health Affairs. By 2008, life expectancy for black women without a high school diploma had surpassed that of white women of the same education level, the study found.
White men lacking a high school diploma lost three years of life. Life expectancy for both blacks and Hispanics of the same education level rose, the data showed. But blacks over all do not live as long as whites, while Hispanics live longer than both whites and blacks.
… The five-year decline for white women rivals the catastrophic seven-year drop for Russian men in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Michael Marmot, director of the Institute of Health Equity in London.
The decline among the least educated non-Hispanic whites, who make up a shrinking share of the population, widened an already troubling gap. The latest estimate shows life expectancy for white women without a high school diploma was 73.5 years, compared with 83.9 years for white women with a college degree or more. For white men, the gap was even bigger: 67.5 years for the least educated white men compared with 80.4 for those with a college degree or better”.
Article written by Sabrina Tavernise, in:
Since few days the issue Allegri, Milan coach, has appeared in newspapers and yesterday we added a new episode. Allegri and Inzaghi have quarreled so much on the field in front of the audience and the youth team of AC Milan coached by Inzaghi.
First, this kind of an insult to any player would have led to a chorus of negative comments and condemned by the media and this has not happened. But this interests me little.
Second, I ask myself why two people and with so great public success easily have lost self-control. Here, too, I do not make a moral issue but I’m interested in understanding what leads to these reactions. It is the usual wounded narcissism of the famous people, the so-called Success Syndrome based on the “How dare you speak to me that way, you do not know who I am!” I fear that this is the explanation that brought them to this argument.
Third, I would suggest to these coaches and millionaires to learn from great football coaches like Nils Liedholm, Enzo Bearzot or Dino Zoff what it is self-control. Let us always remember a basic aspect of interpersonal communication: praising in public and in private quarrels. The scenes in public are the representation of the high level of stress that we are living and the consequent difficulty in maintaining control of our actions.
