Page 44 - Fully Equipped Playbook

BREATHING
While hitting, those breaths are all shorter, but just as important. In between pitches I would step out of the box, take a deep inhale, find a small spot on my bat to focus on, and then exhale as I step back in the box. This personal method worked wonders to slow the game down and
get me ready for the next pitch.
MEDITATION could honestly be its own tool, but since breathing is such an important part of meditation, we’ll discuss it here. Meditation connects the mind and body, in addition to lowering stress, and improving your focus.
I'm sure you’ve experienced anxiety or worry in your life at
some point. It may have been over an upcoming exam, a
game, or even a relationship. I can attest to each of those. I
can recall feeling ill prepared for a test, thinking I should have studied harder or longer, I clearly remember worrying about “showing up” in a big game, especially if scouts were in the stands, and feeling frustrated or sad over a strained relationship in my life. If I had known then what I know now about the benefits of breathing properly, and shifting the focus in my mind I would have been better equipped to manage those thoughts, and flush them out quicker.
I wasn’t in tune with meditation until the second half of my career. To be honest, I used to think it was strange, and not for me. I got pretty serious about meditation after I was traded to Cleveland in the summer of 2016. I had literally just been traded from a last place team to a first place team, shouldn't I have been more excited? Trust me, I was excited, but there were other emotions I was feeling that were stronger. I was on a new team, in a new city, with new faces, in the midst of an incredible season, and facing the stress of a playoff race. I needed an outlet, a way to calm down all of these new feelings and nerves. Meditation was that outlet.
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