Cognitive Performance
Welcome to the Cognitive Performance Page!
Contact
Text: (919) 307-7874
To schedule individual appointments, classes, or for questions.
Classes
Meet the Team
CPT Tim Aune
Mental Readiness Director & Occupational Therapist
OTD Occupational Therapy
Dr. Sally Jo Paul
Occupational Therapist
OTD Occupational Therapy
Veteran
SGT Evelyn Rodriguez
Occupational Therapy Specialist
Trevor Dieterle
Cognitive Performance Specialist
MS Applied Sport & Exercise Psychology
Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC®)
Mental Toughness Big Four
Goal Setting
Process Goals: are goals that are based on specific actions and tasks. These are goals that we have complete control over.
Outcome Goals: are goals that focus on something out of your control and tend to be made of several process goals
Setting Goals using basic principle: S.M.A.R.T Goals
Breathwork
Diaphragmatic Breathing, or "belly breathing", involves fully engaging the stomach, abdominal muscles, and diaphragm when breathing.
Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) is the gas pedal (raises heart rate, blood pressure, causes fight or flight).
Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) is the break pedal (decreases heart rate and blood pressure, calms body down).
Diaphragmatic Breathing strikes a balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood, triggering responses to promote relaxation.
Visualization (Mental Rehearsal)
Imagery means using all of your senses (e.g., see, feel, hear, taste, smell) to rehearse an event in your mind.
When tactical athletes visualize or imagine a successful competition, they actually stimulate the same brain regions as you do when you physically perform that same action.
Visualization or mental imagery is a way of conditioning for your brain for successful outcomes. The more you mentally rehearse your performance, the more it becomes habituated in your mind.
Self-Talk
Our past experiences, biases, prejudices, and stereotypes all play into the internal dialogue and self talk we have. These things are what forms our "Beliefs" and cause us to react a certain way in a situation.
Activating Events -> Beliefs -> Emotional Consequences
Important thing to note is that we have control over our beliefs/thoughts and that directly impacts the emotion or consequences we then experience based on the activating event.
For example: Activating Event is traffic on All-American during the morning rush. In this situation people may feel frustrated, angry, calm, relaxed, etc. Often, we do not explore what is causing that emotional reaction. Are we thinking "man I am going to be late for PT" or "It's okay, I've got good music on and Ill get there when I get there"? The thoughts we experience we have complete control over and therefore can directly impact how we then react in that situation.
Mindfulness Meditation for Tactical Athletes
Mindfulness is bringing awareness or presence to our lives moment to moment. We think over 6,000 thoughts per day, with some estimates up to 80,000. Many of these thoughts are repetitive and negative due to our brain’s protective mechanism to avoid threats. However, these thought patterns take us out of the present moment and that is the only place we truly have power and it is the only place where our attention can take in vital information.
According to recent research, our brains are NOT present 50% of the time. They may go into worries or the future, regrets of the past, droning out on media sources, or comparing ourselves to others. While it can be important to reflect and learn from the past or plan and prepare for the future, we often go beyond these into excessive overthinking or rumination. Social media and news headlines often use these brain tendencies to hook us in outrage or the past, fear of the future and scrolling through others’ perfect lives.
It is possible to train our brains to focus our attention more in the present moment. This has been shown with the military to improve marksmanship, sleep, cognition, performance and emotional regulation. This can be done formally through practices such as mindfulness meditation which includes breath awareness and body scan or breath work practices.
The minimum effective dose is 12 minutes 3x per week, however, going above this has been shown to have increased benefits. Informal practice means simply bringing awareness to whatever we are currently doing or observing one or more breaths. The most basic practice is focusing on our breath and each time our attention wanders, returning to the sensations of our breath.
These concepts are ancient (over 2600 years old!) and they are simple, but they are NOT easy. It takes consistency, commitment and most importantly self-compassion. After just 4 weeks of practice, our brains change. The prefrontal cortex and hippocampus (high level cognitive functions like decision-making) shows increased gray matter that improves attention, memory, and managing stress. The amygdala (fight or flight center) decreases and this reduces anxiety and fear response.
Text (919) 307-7874 to schedule a one on one or group appointment where we can walk you through these concepts.
Sleep for Tactical Performance
Sleep is essential to performance and overall health.
Ideally aiming for 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Due to training operations and mission demands there are short periods of time when getting 7-9 hours of sleep at one time may not be feasible. Take advantage of sleep banking or naps! Napping around 20-30 minutes allows you to get an energy reset without interfering with sleep cycles later. Sleep banking is getting additional sleep prior to periods of reduced sleep - for instance if having a field training for a week where sleep will be reduced, the week prior trying to gain an additional 1-2 hours of sleep per night in order to "bank" sleep before the field. This has been shown to reduce the negative effects (reduced cognitive ability/mental processing, reduced physical performance, etc.) seen from periods of insufficient sleep.
Whether you are having acute or chronic sleep issues, unsatisfied with the quantity and/or quality of your sleep, looking for assistance with improving sleep hygiene or sleep habits, schedule an appointment with the Cognitive Team!
Resources
and other Mental Readiness Contacts