THE QATSPY® Inside the Leather Sports, Health & Fitness Page
By: Charles W. Boatright
Paying Attention to Your P’s & Q’s for Your Health- Your Health is just as much Mental Fitness Factor as it is Physical Fitness Factor
The phrase, Pay attention to your P’s and Q’s, has its origins back in the late 1700’s, in how apprentices at newspapers set typeset for the printing presses. The typeset to print paper was metal letters placed in a block, where the lowercase ‘p’ and ‘q’ were easily transposed.
Thankfully, we have word processors and PC’s now that allow us to have the ability to write and publish articles and papers without a lot less painstaking work and now without paper. No more burning the late midnight oil when trying to meet deadlines.
Paying Attention to Your P’s and Q’s for Your Overall Health
When health and fitness is mentioned in the media or just in conversation, our point of reference is to go to the physical status of a person’s health and fitness. But, in reality, if 80 percent of what we do is mental, then mental fitness should be just as much of a concern. Especially now, since we’re coping with a pandemic. There are big mental concerns we should have for each other’s mental fitness.
Even the medical field understands what benefits your heart and body is also beneficial to your mental health. There’s no doubt that I feel more mentally relaxed after I’ve sweated it out for 50- minutes in my home gym. The more I sweat, the better I feel, which is relaxing and mentally refreshing. Matter of fact, I put on my ARMY PT sweats to make sure that I do sweat. Sweating releases impurities from your body that builds up that causes one to feel anxiety, tired, and depressed.
There was a great article written by Actress Elizabeth Jean Philipps in Vanity in the Aug 2017 issue about the benefits of a hard workout that causes one to sweat. Remember, your skin is your largest organ that contains sweat glands. Use exercise to purify them. The benefits of sweating during a workout aren’t limited to mental and physical fitness, as your workout program is also your best therapy for anti-aging. In the above photograph where I’m in my home gym, I’m 63- years old. I view my fitness program much like I do a 401(k) plan, even small investments make a huge impact over time, both physical and mental.
Your P’s and Q’s of Mental Health
There are four P’s and one Q that supports your physiology and psychology to help you avoid anxiety, stress, and depression. I will tell you a little personal story later of how I used my P’s & Q’s to overcome my teenage depression. The P’s are- Perception, Process, Procedure, and Persistence. The Q-Factor is Qualitative, or the ability to take assessment of success or a failure to gain experience and of a success to gain confidence. Think of failures and successes as building blocks.
Here’s an important tip about failure. An athlete can learn more from a loss or failure than from a success. Because it tells them what not to do the next time. Everyone wins a trophy culture is detrimental to dealing with depression, it doesn’t build self esteem, but actually it does the complete opposite. Failure is essential to the learning process and coping with life.
Applying the Four P’s:
Perception– Perceive what your issues and what your abilities are. Teams don’t concentrate on what they don’t have; instead, they focus on what they have in order to perform. If you experience a setback, you can’t concentrate on what you don’t have; instead, you have to take advantage of what you do HAVE and what can be done differently.
Process– Plot a clear plan with familiar routines to accomplish your goal. Three elements are required in an effective process: identify your objective, establish a clear path, set and organize your priorities. Your goal and process might mean learning a new skill set or adapting a new paradigm philosophy.
Here are three processes that can help to achieve success and Deal with Mental Stress:
- Normal and routine tasks and conditions must exist. (NOTE: Conditions is how we approach situations)
- Rely on a high degree of relaxation, confidence, and muscle memory.
- The conscious and subconscious minds are focused on two different situations.
Just a little sidebar on conditions, conditions aren’t what we can’t control or manage, but what we can control and manage. We can always control how we perceive and respond to certain situations. A great mental condition is to focus on small things that you can manage.
Let me use a baseball analogy considering conditions, as baseball is a game of failures. An excellent batter is hitting 400 (that means they are hitting 40% of the pitches and striking out 60% of the time). Successful teams, like the LSU College baseball team, have followed the small ball philosophy. Small ball isn’t where the batters are swinging for the fences every time at bat; instead, they are using their discipline and just getting base hits. I saw a baseball game where the Arkansas Razorbacks were hosting the LSU Tigers. The Tigers, by using the small ball approach, dismantled the Arkansas Razorbacks 14 to 2.
I realize small ball goes against what we, the fans, would consider as ideal hitting conditions in the batter’s box of swinging for the fences. But games aren’t won off home runs, they are won off base hits of doing the small things right, over and over again. The batter who does strike out knows that persistence is how they will win more games than they will lose.
A sports psychology that works to avoid anxiety, stress, and feeling depressed is to concentrate more on your processes than the results. If the process is correct, the results will take care of themselves. The Apostle Paul had a great philosophy that people need to adopt, in 1 Corinthians 14:40, But be sure that everything is done property and in order. If a team stays with a clear game plan, they have better odds of being successful, take the case of the LSU baseball team with the discipline of playing small ball.
One of the major issues people have in their life is when they face challenges, obstacles, and difficulties. Best approach to these situations in life is to expect them. There will always be unexpected circumstances that will occur. Just build in contingency plans. For example, a baseball batter have no control over the pitch selection, they can only anticipate the pitch and respond accordingly. If a batter is looking for the ideal pitch, they will be very disappointed.
I used to work in one of the most dangerous professions, being a Grid Engineer working with linemen working energized work. There were no second chances in working the high Voltages lines. You have to have a process that is well-defined and established. Your process had to be followed in the proper order to survive.
Procedure– Follow a well-proven, sequential routine, without any deviations. The procedure allows a person to reach their high level of performance. The other key is that the procedure must become instinctive, so that your mind will follow without any hesitation.
Persistence– The determination to never give up, even in the face of difficulties, lack of education, or lack of talent. Persistence can overcome any of these. Even when is seems dark and your feel secluded, persistence will prevail.
A great example of persistence is taking failure to gain experience, and use success to gain confidence. One’s failures and successes are just processes and not goals or objectives. The real objective is following the process. A great philosophy on persistence is again Paul in Philippians 3:13, Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.
Just remember, successes can be a bigger burden than dealing with a failure.
Peace– Peace of mind has just as much to do with exercises (i.e., yoga, aerobics, strength, and cardio) than mental meditation. Especially if yoga is used to work on one’s balance. Balance is a key factor in confronting depression.
One of the best techniques for meditation is what I refer to as active meditation. Riding a bicycle, working out with a punching bag, or even strength training are great methods to separate the conscious mind from the subconscious mind. This is the reason why physical exercise is essential in developing one’s peace of mind.
Setting up a Home Gym doesn’t have to consist of expensive equipment, just the basics. In the training videos below is all the equipment that I workout with. I have included three (3) of my exercise videos with instruction below, the videos are FREE to view. Also, incorporating music into workout is a huge motivator. Use music like U-2 music to set up the atmosphere I want, one reason is the beat. I also found that using brick, or wallpaper that has a brick pattern, in your gym is a great way to relax the mind while working out.
ASCOT Fitness Exercise Part 1
ASCOT Fitness Exercise Part 2
ASCOT Fitness Exercise Part 3
Qualitative Assessment
Qualitative Assessment consists of the ability to measure the quality of the end results rather than its quantity of the results, regardless of achievement. Sometimes the small things done right have a bigger impact than large-scale results, small ball concept. You have to consider minor, small, short-range accomplishments are just as important as major, long- range accomplishments. Weigh all accomplishments the same.
Here’s an example small assessment of a accomplishment, I love a nice, hot shave in the morning using shaving soap and brush with a mug of hot water. After I finish shaving, I feel like a man that just went to a spa.
However, you quantitate results at the end of each day, exercise, or task; don’t look for major gains, but instead, the incremental gains. This will help you deal with experiencing depression. Also hobbies are a great way to deal with depression. I have recently taken up sewing to customize our jackets that we supply to the U.S. military personnel and companies with patches. I have two (2) extreme hobbies at each end of the spectrum, sewing and welding, both are very relaxing to engage in mentally.
Overcoming My Obstacles
For the most part of my childhood, I had a severe learning disability, I was illiterate until I was 11- years old. I experience bouts of depression that I had to deal with that was caused by embarrassment that comes with illiteracy, until I started fourth grade.
The worst situation that I had to deal with was in 3rd grade when a teacher called upon me to read aloud knowing that I couldn’t read.
The summer before I started fourth grade, I had a Boy Scout leader, who was a Chemical Engineer, that diagnose my disability as having extremely poor vision that was soon corrected at the start of that summer. We lived in a small town where the local radio station that would read the daily newspaper during the morning programing.
My Boy Scout leader also took the time and taught me my phonetics and suggested that I follow the morning readings of the local newspaper radio broadcast. Before I started the fourth grade, I was reading at fifth grade level. I couldn’t put down books after that summer, as I was reading nonstop, especially history books. I was still typecast as a boy with mental deficiencies. I was constantly told what I couldn’t do.
There will always be an ample supply of either external voices or internal thoughts offering up assessments on what you’re incapable of achieving. Take that as a personal’s opinion or thought as your challenge, because true triumph comes when one can turn a weakness into a strength. The best case that I can point to of one turning a weakness into a strength is Herschel Walker’s story. A young boy that didn’t have any exceptional athletic ability became an athlete ( a premier running back) that every college football team wanted to recruit.
In closing, I like to refer to The Shakespeare of the Bible, Isaiah, probably stated it best- In quietness and confidence shall be your strength, a person’s True Grit.
I hope this is helps and offers some degree of inspiration and help during this Pandemic to someone. If you only get one thing out of this, I hope that it is perseverance! Don’t EVER give up or give in.
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