PsychEdge Club

Calling Naperville and Chicago-area athletes (and the parents in their corner). 📍

Summer is the best time to build the mental side of your game — no in-season pressure, just space to install the skills that hold up when it matters.

At PsychEdge, I work with local competitive athletes — high school, college-bound, and collegiate — on the things coaches rarely have time to teach: managing pressure, building real confidence, and bouncing back fast after a mistake.

As a Naperville local and a parent myself, I understand the power of online learning, so summer travel and tournament schedules don't get in the way. That’s why I offer remote sessions and online learning programs.

If you've ever searched "sports psychologist near me" and weren't sure where to start — start here.
🔗 https://www.psych-edge.com/onlinecourses

Interested in getting a discount on mindset training online??? DM me!!

New month, fresh lane. 🏊‍♀️
Summer is the season most athletes coast. It's also the season the great ones quietly pull ahead.

I'm using June to reset my own training — not just the body work, but the mental reps too. New process goals. A cleaner pre-set routine. One word I come back to when a set falls apart.

The athletes I coach hear me say it constantly: the off-season is where the mental game is built, because there's no scoreboard pressure to hide behind.

So, here's my honest question for you 👇

What's the ONE thing you want your mind to do better by the end of summer?

I got a DM from a college freshman last month. “I was the best player on my high school team. Now I can’t even make the starting lineup. I don’t know what happened.”
I do.
What happened is the jump from big fish to bigger pond. The physical gap closes at higher levels. Everyone is talented. Everyone is trained.
The differentiator becomes the mental game. And most athletes have never been taught one.

That’s why I built the 5-Module Online Mental Training Program:
📋 Module 1: Mindfulness / Awareness for Self-Regulation & Performance Anxiety
📋 Module 2: SMARTER Goals for Motivation and Focus
📋 Module 3: Self-Talk — Confidence & Focus When It Matters
📋 Module 4: Emotional Intelligence & Growth Mindset —Managing Pressure & Resilience
📋 Module 5: Visualization — Your Superpower
Self-paced. Science-backed. Built for competitive athletes at the high school and college level.

Go into summer READY — not reactive.

🔗 Course details + enrollment: link below.
https://www.psych-edge.com/coachingservices

DM me “MENTAL EDGE” and I’ll send you the full breakdown. 📲

I PR’d my 100 fly last month. And it had nothing to do with my training.
My training was identical to the month before (when I went a full second slower).
What changed? What I did BETWEEN heats.

Most swimmers treat the time between races like a break. Sit around. Check the heat sheet. Watch other races. Text friends. Replay their last race on a loop.
That’s not recovery. That’s mental chaos.

Here’s the between-heats protocol I use personally and teach every swimmer I work with:
🟡 FIRST 10 MINUTES: Full physical cooldown. Walk, stretch, hydrate. Do NOT talk about the race yet. Let your nervous system settle.
🟡 MIDDLE BLOCK: Quick debrief. One thing that went well. One thing to adjust. That’s it. Write it down if you want. Then close the book.
🟡 LAST 15 MINUTES: Pre-race routine kicks in. Music on. Visualization of the race you WANT. Power word locked in. Same sequence, same order, every time.
The goal: arrive at the blocks in the SAME mental state for every race — regardless of what happened last time.

Consistent routines create consistent performances.

🏊 Swimmers: what do you currently do between heats? Tell me below. I want to know.

A parent messaged me last week: “My daughter throws up before every tournament. We’ve tried everything. Is this normal?”
Yes. And it’s more common than most people realize.

Performance anxiety is the #1 reason student-athletes seek sports psychology help. And it shows up differently for everyone:
• Nausea or stomach pain before games
• “Freezing” in moments they’ve trained for
• Playing not to lose instead of playing to win
• Avoiding competition altogether

The good news? It’s one of the most treatable challenges in sports psychology.

I wrote a deep-dive article on the PsychEdge blog that covers:
🔹 Why your body reacts this way under pressure (it’s actually trying to HELP you)
🔹 6 evidence-based tools to manage it — before, during, and after competition
🔹 What parents can do to support (and what to stop doing immediately)

🔗 Link below — read it and send it to a parent who needs it.
https://www.psych-edge.com/post/tame-performance-anxiety-6-tools-for-student-athletes-parents

I was at a travel baseball tournament last spring. A 14-year-old shortstop made an error in the 3rd inning. Routine ground ball, right through his legs.
By the 5th inning, he’d made three more.
Not because he forgot how to field. Because his brain was still replaying the first one.
His coach pulled him aside and said: “Just relax.” – not exactly helpful.

Here’s what actually works:
The 5-4-3-2-1 Reset — a 30-second grounding technique you can do on a sideline, in a dugout, or between heats:
✋️ 5 things you SEE (scan your environment — the grass, the scoreboard, your glove)
👂 4 things you HEAR (crowd, bat crack, your own breathing)
✋ 3 things you TOUCH (jersey fabric, ball seams, bench)
👃 2 things you SMELL (grass, dirt, chalk)
👅 1 thing you TASTE

This pulls your brain out of the replay loop and drops it into the present moment. The spiral stops because you’ve interrupted the pattern.

It’s backed by clinical research. I use it with every athlete I work with — from 14-year-old swimmers to D1 football players and professionals.

💾 Save this. Screenshot it. Keep it in your phone for game day.