BRAINS ARE COOL!

Especially when you have a better understanding of how they can help you… and how they can work against you if your aren’t training your mind.

We know how complicated science can be when it comes to mental stuff. Don’t worry! We keep it easy to understand, even though it’s based in a lot of science, research and real-life practice. Better yet, when using the NeuroFuel App, there’s nothing complicated about it - just follow the exercises and let your brain do the work.

NeuroFuel PUTS SCIENCE TO WORK FOR YOU

THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM IS WHERE IT’S AT

You probably remember this from school. When you think of the central nervous system, think of your brain and spinal cord. These parts are what lets you sense everything around you, process all of that information, and send out signals to the rest of your body for action. NeuroFuel is designed to take advantage of how this system works through exercises that enable you to achieve maximum performance

 APPLIED AND PROVEN SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY

VISUALIZATION

Visualization is simply the act of picturing in your mind exactly how you want to perform a skill.

Did you know that your central nervous system can’t tell the difference between real and imagined events! This means you can build “muscle memory” by visualizing the performance of an activity.

NeuroFuel guides users through short, but powerful, visualization exercises that have the same effect on muscle memory as physically performed activities. For many skills, five minutes of visualization can have the same impact of 30 minutes of physical practice.

We told you that brains are cool.

DEEP BREATHING

Why do people always tell me to take a deep breath?

Probably because someone told them to do it when they were younger and something positive happened. Scientifically speaking, when we take a deep breath, we engage the longest nerve in our body - the vagus nerve. This nerve wanders all over the body and is connected to our heart. When engaged through a deep breath, the vagus nerve releases a tranquilizing substance called acetylcholine directly onto the heart. This helps soothe the body and creates a relaxation response that lowers heart rate and blood pressure. This is a pretty important nerve!

NeuroFuel trains deep breathing techniques to give us the control to engage this nerve to intentionally calm ourselves.

MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness relates to your ability to focus on “right now” and not what you just did or what you are planning to do next. Most humans are never fully present, and it has become so much harder today because of things like smartphones and social media that keep so many of us distracted.

NeuroFuel mindfulness exercises help athletes focus by being in the current moment.

GRATITUDE

Gratitude is the act of being TRULY thankful for what you have. Research clearly shows there are numerous benefits to your life and with your athletic performance when you make a commitment to being grateful. Repeated studies show that an “attitude of gratitude” has tremendous power in school, sports and life.

There are signs of less stress, anger, hatred and negative emotions and an increase in self-esteem, love and empathy.

SMART GOAL SETTING

We like to use the term SMART when doing elite goal setting.  SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time Bound.

A non-SMART goal would be, “I want to be a better outside hitter.” A SMART goal would be, “I want to improve my outside hitting percentage from .200 to .300 during my upcoming volleyball season.” Setting and working toward SMART goals is a key for continued improvement in performance.

POSITIVE SELF TALK

What we say to ourselves is powerful and words matter! Elite performers learn how to flip the script and have three times as many positive self-thoughts on average compared to negative ones. While it sounds simple, for most people it does not come naturally. Positive self-talk needs to be trained like any other skill, until it becomes a matter of habit.