Mark Bellamy Psychology Consulting

25/03/2020

Supporting the NHS to support us.
Being part of the NHS team
Dr Mark Bellamy
Most of my working life I have been part of a support team for athletes and sports teams, doing what I can to help them perform when they need to. Many of us will be performing similar roles in our job, supporting the success of an enterprise, be that sporting, commercial, research, military or educational. If our support is good, we give the best chance of the athlete, our students, our enterprise or our business doing the job, thriving and performing optimally.
Over the next few weeks and months we all need to play a support role to the NHS by social distancing, we need to help them thrive and be able to do their job and how we behave now is critical to this happening. If we want them to be able to look after us, if something happens to you or one of your loved ones, then we need to behave in a manner that gives them the best chance to work effectively.
As always, the support team puts in hours and does its job, but the real danger is on the front line, and it is no different here; a high percentage of those getting Covid 19 are NHS workers. That is why being part of their team and giving them what they need is so vital, we must take our role in managing the virus to heart and, by doing this, we support the NHS and let them perform. As in any environment, if those on the front line get overloaded then effective performance becomes more and more difficult.
Our support in this area is completely circular, we need to be able to support the NHS so that they have the capability to support those of us who need medical interventions.
They are literally putting their lives on the line to keep us safe, so let’s do what we need to do to let them do their jobs.
That is the reason why social distancing is so crucial, it is not a game of “what I can get away with”, or “I just needed to pop over to see so and so”, it is about limiting our social engagement to as close to zero as it is possible to get.
We need to think of ourselves as the back-room staff for the NHS, we do our job and by doing that we enable them to do theirs, make this your key focus and be proud of how your efforts are supporting those working for the NHS.

20/03/2020

Dr Mark Bellamy
Covid 19 and Sport
So Covid 19 is out there doing its thing and for many Sports-People it feels as though it is stopping us doing our thing.
First of all let’s recognise that this is a period in our lives that will pass, but it is also a period where we are being asked to come out of our precious routines that by and large form our lives. We need to have the flexibility and growth in our approaches to enable us to mitigate the impact of the virus on us, our friends and families and those in the broader society.
Let’s look at how we can reframe this new reality and make it work for us.
As athletes there is the potential disappointment of a season disrupted at best and cancelled at worst.
There is however a bigger picture and the opportunity to take a broader perspective on how we want to live and support the society in which we live. Athletes have a role to play here, not only do they take on extra load when they train and put their bodies through the rigours of development and their minds through the pressure of performing under pressure, but they then have to perform under a strict set of artificially enforces rules.
Let’s take these skills as athletes and understand the wider perspective of the times we are living in. Most of us are more used to disappointment than absolute success, we are used to training hard without always getting our just rewards, we are used to looking after our teammates and being supported by them and our wider team.
Let’s make this a time where we bring our athletic skills to a wider use and accept that how we behave now reflects on us as valuable human beings and not simply as athletes.
Think about the hierarchy of importance in your life?
Your loved ones, your health, your family, your peers, your development as a person, your development as an athlete?
None of this is lost with Corona Virus, what is lost is the short-term opportunity to perform and yes that can take some getting over. But that is part of your skill base as an athlete and now is an opportunity to bring that skill into play. Now is a time to have a broader perspective and an acceptance of the new reality of the situation that we all find ourselves in.
If the season is simply disrupted, then the question you need to answer is:
• What you need to do to come back from a base level to a performance level. That is the one skill you need to make sure you have ready for action. Who do you need in your team to work on this?
If the season is written off, then the opportunity is to consider how you can use the period for development?
• How can this period without the complication of competition be best utilised to develop myself as an athlete and a human being?
Now, we know there will be a play off between our emotional brain and what we want and our rational brain, and what we need to do. Be kind to yourself and give some time to let that playout, and if that means a week of going easy then so be it, but ensure that you end up doing what is best for you in the long term and the decisions that you make are ones that you can be proud of and reflect sound ethics and support others and their wellbeing.
We do however have an opportunity:
• How often does the competitive season arrive when you are ready and primed?
• How can you use this time to ensure that you have developed those areas that you would like to work on?
• How often does the time arrive when you have that little bit of extra time to do something that is totally different?
Within the confines of the world in which we find ourselves there is actually more than enough room for creativity, there is more than enough room to live by our values, and there is more than enough room to look around and see who could benefit from some support.
Now, for many of us, structure will seem to rapidly disappear from our lives. I have been working with the 4 x 3 format with many of my clients to put a little structure and framework into the day and to make sure there is enough stuff in there to give a positive emotion that we have the energy to put in some of the other key ingredients to make each day work.
So in simple terms get the following into your days before you make it any more complicated:
3 x 20 minutes exercise
3 x 20 minutes social phone calls
3 x activities that bring you joy
3 x meals that truly nourish you.
Remember that none of us have been here before, but that does not mean we cannot live in a way that enhances us as human beings, and before you are athletes each and every-one of us is a valuable human being, get that right and the sport will be waiting for us when this is all over and you will have developed in who you are.

04/03/2020

04/03/2020

27/09/2019

By Dr. Mark Bellamy, PhD Cpsychol AFBPsS, Performance & Sport Psychologist Pain is a real nuisance, and when we suffer it, we naturally wish it was not there.

28/08/2019

Very proud of Ojie Edoburun who performed beautifully this weekend at the British Athletic Championships to win the 100m title and qualify for the World Championships in Doha 👏

Click below to see how Sports Psychology has helped Ojie Edoburun.

The Voice Newspaper attended the 2019 Muller British Athletics Championships where we caught up with 100m winner Ojie Edoburun interview: Camera:...

26/08/2019

Dealing with injury is an interesting area; much of my work in this area is completed within The Bosworth Clinic just outside of Oxford. Work here is not just about fixing people when they get injured, it is also about creating a way of life that reduces the incidence of injury and giving athletes the tools to understand and support themselves. I and Gordon Bosworth strongly followed this approach when we worked together for UK-Athletics in the lead up to the 2012 Olympic Games and took some pride in the low levels of injury that we saw with our athletes at the Loughborough High Performance Centre.

When we look at how we can work with individuals to become less liable to injury, overtraining and all the other minor things that can get in the way of what you really want to do in sport or any other areas of your life, we have to take into account the person and how they are approaching their lives.

Of course for a coach life would be very much easier if we could reduce the work and impact on athletes to simple formulas. Using a certain dosage of exercise or training, plus fixed recovery strategies to guarantee improvement of their athlete. Luckily (otherwise sport would be very simple), things do not work quite like that, we are working with very individual human beings with very different capabilities and backgrounds, and we need to account for all of this in: how an individual approaches their lives, what their organisational abilities they have, what stressors there are and how they affect them and how they are coping with current levels of training (as a very minimum). READ ON THE LINK BELOW.

Dealing with injury is an interesting area; much of my work in this area is completed within The Bosworth Clinic just outside of Oxford. Work here is not just about fixing people when they get injured, it is also about creating a way of life that reduces the incidence of injury and giving athletes t...

19/08/2019

This is a summary of some work completed by Gavin Sandercock and his team at Essex University and we consider this in the light of what we know about the importance of physical activity becoming a habit for young people early enough that it literally becomes wired into their brains as part of their lives. We consider how high levels of sitting time may be linked to high levels of usage of electronic media devices.

Firstly the team considered the amounts of daily sitting times for high school girls and boys and found that on average boys were sitting for 627 minutes a day and girls for 612 or 10 hours 45 minutes and ten hours and 12 minutes respectively. Of these 47% of the boys and 54% of the girls had low levels of physical activity (not surprisingly) and 40.9 and 42.9% of boys and girls showed low levels of cardiovascular fitness. When we looked at week time sitting times we got even higher figures of 12.8 hours a day for boys and 12 hours 20 minutes for girls. Add in eight to ten hours for sleep and there really is not much time left at all for physical activity and with these time limitations it is perhaps quite understandable why so many of these young people are unfit. READ ON THE LINK BELOW.

This is a summary of some work completed by Gavin Sandercock and his team at Essex University and we consider this in the light of what we know about the importance of physical activity becoming a habit for young people early enough that it literally becomes wired into their brains as part of their....

12/08/2019

1. Write down what you have done, this is the work that you have put in that will help you.
2. Have a plan for the marathon. Know how fast you want to start, what pace to keep and when to take on fluid and any food. Stick to it in the marathon and follow you r plan.
3. Have a ‘snagging list’ of what you will do if things go wrong. Plan it and then if it isn’t going your way for whatever reason, whatever you do next is in the absence of panic.
4. Know why you are doing the marathon and have that clear before you start, if and when it gets really tough bring that thought to mind and keep it there.
5. Remember that how well you move will massively impact the efficiency of your movement, as you fatigue try to maintain good gait and posture otherwise fatigue will bring on a double wammy of also moving less well and less efficiently....READ ON THE LINK BELOW!

Write down what you have done, this is the work that you have put in that will help you. Have a plan for the marathon. Know how fast you want to start, what pace to keep and when to take on fluid and any food. Stick to it in the marathon and follow you r […]