This course helps the participants build a complete "toolbox" for themselves and those the coach. These toolboxes will be filled with multiple resources to share in order to encourage athletes to explore and practice techniques until they find those that resonate with them. They will need techniques they can use at the beginning of a big competition to calm their nerves, techniques they can do on a daily basis to manage stress more productively, and also a long-term plan for understanding how stress works, how to recognize if they are not coping well and what to do about it.
The Coaches' Mental Health Toolbox will consist of positive coping strategies and skills coaches can teach their athletes. Strategies will address
- stress management in the moment -- what can an athlete do “right now, in this moment”-- to reduce their acute stress
- coping skills for daily stress management
- life skills and practices for developing a long-term robust stress management plan that can adapt to the needs of the individual as they grow and change.
