This past summer on July 21, Jeff Greenwald, sports psychologist, former pro-tennis player, two-time world champion and Redwood dad, published a book on the mental side of sports. “The Mental Edge for Young Athletes: A World Champion’s Mental Toughness Guide for Athletes, Parents, and Coaches in the Digital Age,” is meant to provide tools for young athletes alike in their mental strength.

The “mental edge” refers to a purely productive state of mind that allows a person to be solely focused and ready for their task. Greenwald’s book can be used as a guide for young athletes to understand and utilize this in their sport.

“[The mental game] really requires the mindset, the thought process, [and] the mental approach to what you’re doing, and then you need tools in the moment to adjust, so I wrote this book,” Greenwald said. 

A general tool Greenwald mentions in his book is setting intentions in order to keep focus in the moment.

“Improving the quality of your focus, presence and commitment to what you’re doing in the moment will only improve the probability of having a good outcome. So, it’s really [about] setting intentions specifically for the day, for the hour, and whatever you do, you do it fully and then take a break,” Greenwald said.

Senior and varsity athlete Tommy Vasquez discusses a similar tool in taking breaks while combating burnout in his schedule.

“I’ve definitely felt at times where I did training for a week straight and getting out to the field again is like, I really don’t want to do this. I think taking breaks is important. If I’m getting bored at lacrosse or it’s starting to get repetitive, I’ll go throw a football around with my friends,” Vasquez said.

Although Vasquez implements these practices in his life to keep him mentally ready, mental training has only recently become less overlooked. 

“[Mental training has] grown incrementally every couple years with athletes coming out and talking about it and being open about it. But, it’s not simple to help athletes under pressure to execute these tools and commit to these tools,” Greenwald said.

Matthew Knauer, a current freshman at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Redwood alum and former captain of the boys’ varsity baseball team, helped Greenwald edit “The Mental Edge”.

“The reason he was looking for a high schooler was because the book was about how youth athletes can get a mental edge, so he wanted someone who not only had the journalist and editing skills, but someone who was a youth athlete and had that perspective,” Knauer said.

Knauer could also relate to a lot of the content in the book since he struggled with the “yips”, or uncontrolled muscle spasms during sports performance. According to a Healthline article, the “yips” stem from a lack of confidence in motor skills that cause muscle twitches or tremors while playing a sport. 

“A lot of the book was talking about instilling confidence and strong self-talk, the way that you perceive the thoughts in your own head. A lot of that really resonated with me,” Knauer said. 

Vasquez also implements this self-motivation before his games to promote confidence. 

“I always think, ‘I’ve done this before, I’ve done this play like a hundred times in practice. I can do this,’” Vasquez said.

Additionally, Greenwald implemented relevant events in his book that Knauer enjoyed reading.

“He gave such prevalent, strong examples from his career and major sports events that people can relate to. He would give historical examples from famous athletes and sports figures, and use those to sort of explain the concepts he was trying to cover,” Knauer said.

Much of this content that Greenwald added was so readers could relate and therefore understand the tools he is offering and be able to use them with ease.

“I wanted to make this relatable so I used a lot of real conversations I had with athletes, parents, pros, but also from kids. All of these sort of universal challenges, helping athletes really be able to take a simple tool and apply it,” Greenwald said.

Greenwald explains how the investment in athletic careers for young athletes has led to more stress amongst teens because they don’t feel good enough.

“I think the fear of failure looms larger now with the exposure of social media, with the expectation that comes from that and from what we see as possible. So there’s more opportunity, and I think there’s some FOMO [fear of missing out]. There’s just a lot of information and noise and it’s always overwhelming,” Greenwald said.

Many of the mental challenges seen in teens today come from the amount of social media they are consuming and coincidentally the fear of missing out (FOMO). A Click2Pro article found that 60 percent of teenagers experience FOMO, with social media anxiety being a primary reason. 

There are a lot of different mental challenges out there that different athletes face, but Knauer mentioned that even the best athletes have room to improve their mental skills.

“Even if you think you have strong mental skills, touching up on them by reading a book like this can really strengthen yourself. The other thing is, there’s a chapter for everyone,”  Knauer said. “You know there’s so many different branches under the umbrella of mental skills and so he dives into many different [types] and I feel like everyone [can find] a chapter to relate to.”