The Importance of Rituals in Athletes

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When we're experiencing chatter, we feel like we're not in control of our thoughts. And one of the things we've learned is that you can regain a sense of order and control by ordering your spaces around you. Putting things in order helped me feel like I had more control. Like, rituals are highly structured routines. We do them the exact same way each time. That's a way we can give our sense of self of order and Control. They also do other things, including being linked with meaning.

Whether or not we care to admit it, we all talk to ourselves. A lot. The voice in our heads yaks it up about half the time we’re awake, and it can speak at a rate of 4,000 words per minute. When it really gets going like that, not everything it says is particularly helpful. We’ve all gotten stuck dwelling on the past, worrying about the future, or standing idly by as our inner monologue devolves from introspection into negativity. Experimental psychologist Ethan Kross calls those moments chatter. “When the inner voice runs amok and chatter takes the mental microphone,” he writes, “our mind not only torments but paralyzes us.” Luckily, there are tools we can use to take back the mic, and in this episode, Ethan talks Rufus through them.