Essay on Positive psych

Sports psychology deals with the mental and emotional aspects of physical performance. It involves describing, explaining and predicting attitudes, feelings and behaviours in an attempt to improve performance. In the film 'Coach Carter,' directed by Thomas Carter, sport psychology is used effectively to enhance the performance of a high school basketball team. However, this improved performance is not limited to the basketball court, it extends into the classroom where the students use goal setting, motivation, concentration and confidence control, ultimately to become accepted into college, avoiding a life of drugs, gangs and prison.

Positive Psychological Effects. Along with a child’s physical health, research shows that a child’s psychological well-being will improve through sports as well. An article on Health Fitness Revolution mentions that playing sports heightens the athlete’s morale through the different ways the athlete helps their team (“Top 10 Benefits of Youth Sports”). More specifically, an article on Psychology Today says that a girl who participates in sports generally has a more positive view of her body, even if she doesn’t “conform to society’s very rigid standards of female beauty” (Lindholm). When children feel confident about themselves, they ultimately feel the same about their whole life as well.

From the perspective of positive psychology, there is a well-being formula invested by Martin Seligman to achieve a higher well-being. Martin Seligman (2010) defined as happiness: H (to maintain the length of happiness) = S (happy range breadth) + V (you can control the factors) + C (your living environment). Happy length: the distinction between "temporary" happy and "persistent" happy. Temporary happiness can be achieved by food, comedy, bunch of flowers. While the persistence of happiness is mainly affected by genetic, and this genetic trait can be changed. The breadth of happiness: psychologists think that we are born with a happy constant point, like a thermometer. If there is a happier thing, even if we are upset, it will be dedicated

Our thoughts, diet/nutrition, exercise, rest, environment and physiology have a positive or negative impact on us which affects how well we perform and feel. In the world of sports, this is very easy to demonstrate because the mind/body connection provides you with immediate feedback. When you are positive, your performance excels. When you are negative, your performance is adversely affected. With various types of distress, or

The study results included that there were few differences between the male and female athletes perception of sport psychology except the males tend to view sport psychology as having to do with mental things and females viewed it as having a problem. Both genders seemed to view the barrier of using sport psychology services to be admitting you have a problem and how others (peers) would view it, embarrassment. Other conclusions from this study were that high school athlete has a positive attitude about sport psychology and want to gain a better understanding of the field. It was noted, the focus group facilitator’s background in the field of sport psychology was shared in the group and may have influenced the participates positive attitude

According to the Center, “Positive psychology is the systematic study of human strength, resilience and qualities that empower individuals and group of people to succeed” (Positive Psychology Center, 2014). Positive psychology’s founders learned through study that people usually place more emphasis on what goes wrong in their lives; they focus on their failures. For instance, divorce, financial obligations, or losing a job. It is imperative to comprehend the characteristics of undesirable experiences in an individual’s life. As an alternative to focusing on failure, focus can be placed on the positive situations in life and understand those are the occasions worth living for. Positive psychology emphasizes strengths and weaknesses, magnifying the positive aspects of life, and healing the effects of negative experiences. Positive psychology focuses on a person’s strengths and the hope of something larger then oneself to lead individuals to a more meaningful

Following Malcolm Gladwell’s idea on “the story of success”, Sonja Lyubomirsky put happiness to the test. Happiness has many great advantages that some may not think about. Studies shown happiness leads to stronger relationships, higher work performance, and even living longer with many health benefits.

Many of us may have specific personality traits (dispositions to behave in a certain way, as expressed in the behavior of a person in a variety of circumstances, Cervone & Pervin, 2013) that might be negative, particularly when coping with stress and or facing challenges. Some of these traits have been due in part to inherited factors, copied from our parents or caregivers during childhood, or due to environmental influence. Regardless of the case, there is good news for all of us; we can change our brains. However, it takes persistent practice and time. We can develop new habits by training our brain.

The article that I chose to write about from PsychologyToday.com is the “Six Phrases That Weigh You Down On Game Day” By Jim Taylor. This article is primarily about six phrases that children might say when they feel pressured or weighed down from the competition of sports and how to change their thoughts of demanding a lot from themselves (which looks negative in a way) to being optimistic (which is quite positive). Thinking this way takes a lot of weight of off a child's shoulders when they are playing to earn achievements, trophies, and it helps them when they aren't performing to the best of their ability. Changing words you say like “I must” to “I would like to” can have a big impact on how positive your thoughts are.

Positive psychology is a growing field in psychology that focuses on understanding and encouraging personal growth and potential (Kramer, Bernstein, & Phares, 2014). The article, “Why Happiness Isn’t Always Good: Asians vs Americans” published by Time Magazine and written by John Cloud looks at a study done by Janxin Leu, that examines positive emotions. The focus on this paper is to look at how research studies are portrayed in the public sphere, specifically looking at Cloud’s article.

Life requires you to have a positive outlook. Sports can teach you to be positive and provides you with great traits such as trust and leadership.

Sports are generally stereotyped as physical activities that require little to no cognitive abilities, but this could not be further from the truth. Sports are extremely mentally driven, and the psychological maturity of an athlete greatly influences their physical performance. These athletes’ coaches play a key role in not only strengthening the physical component of their game, but also the mental maturation within their chosen sport. Many researchers have studied how the coach affects the athlete on a psychological level, but one of the most prominent studies is, “The Association Between the Perceived Coach-Athlete Relationship and Athletes’ Basic Psychological Needs” by Hunhyuk Choi, Seongkwan Cho, and Jinyoung Huh. This study would appeal to a vast majority of the population, but would specifically intrigue both current, and future collegiate-level athletes, and coaches. It would inform both parties of their role within the Coach-Athlete-Relationship (CAR), and what a healthy CAR should both mimic and produce. This matter would also be of interest to anyone working in positions of authority over both the athletes, and the coaches. This could be parents, athletic directors, psychologists, department directors, or psychiatrists to name a few. All of these people holding leadership roles should know how the CAR will affect the athletes on both a physical and psychological level. This study shows that the CAR impacts every area of the athletes’ loves including

Children who participate in sports are developing rapidly in sports skills, sportsmanship, and psychologically, but does this come from organized sports are just nature’s process. Children develop emotional and social benefits from participating in sports. Children experience character and leadership development through peer relations leading to an increase in self-esteem and a decrease in anxiety levels. Children will get opportunities to experience positive and negative emotions throughout their practice and games trials. It is important for the coach to understand the “psychology of youth sports and physical activity participation” (Weinberg & Gould, 2011 p.516).

When many think of positive psychology it is not often thought that engaging in physical activity can be one of the best ways to stay mentally fit. Being mentally fit is not an easy task especially when you are maxed physically fit and trying to reach the peak of your performance. Peak performance becomes a possibility to those who are highly committed to an activity and have the skill at a high level. There is no switch that a player can flick on and be able to achieve their peak performance. There are different elements that can have an effect on a player’s mental state that may not allow them to reach their peak. Sports psychologists have put in place programs in which players can train and teach themselves to better into ‘flow’. Flow is just one of the many words that can be used to describe the feeling of peak performance and is the ground level of peak performance.

We began this course with the question “What is happiness? and Can we all achieve authentic Happiness? In our life we are taught many things, but we are not taught how to achieve our own happiness. Over the last five weeks we truly learned what happiness is and I believe we all can achieve authentic happiness in our life. In Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman uses happiness and well being as the terms to describe the goals of Positive Psychology. The desired outcome of Positive Psychology is happiness and well being. We learned from this course how to embrace both our positive feelings and activities to achieve authentic Happiness.