13/11/2025
I am back from the 2025 FIDE World Cup chess championships in Goa, India. What a privilege to work in the area of Sport and High Performance with incredibly inspiring individuals and teams, whether it is chess, tennis, rhythmic gymnastics or badminton! Chess, of course is as mental a sport as you can imagine and the psychology of cognition, - attention, working memory and visual processing- emotion regulation and stress management are critical here. But the links between mind and body and the role of somatic functions such as sympathetic activity ( autonomic arousal and modulation) and the heart-brain connection are no less important in this very cognitive sport. For instance, HRV (Heart Rate Variability) can predict cognitive performance in chess players and can be used as a training tool!
💡Eating healthy for your brain. Increased consumption of fruits and vegetables is associated with lower anxiety and stress scores (Lancet article in 2015 on nutritional medicine in psychiatry)
💡Using exercise and physical training to complement and train cognitive processes. Also to prepare for the gruelling hours in front of the opponent. Exercise and HRV training are interesting tools. (Fuentes-Garcia et al. 2019, Frontiers in Psychology)
💡Managing the increased cognitive load, difficulty and intense pressure demands top notch stress management practices, with little left to chance in order to truly own the endgame.
As a psychologist observing the game play, this applied just as much to myself - standing or walking quietly (look at the tables of intense concentration!) and slowly, some days for 5 hours at a stretch needed both mental and physical, strength and stamina.
✨My skills as a clinical psychologist, honed with years in practice along with the principles and skills of the and and endurance training and competing for all came together beautifully to help me do what I am passionate about doing. To be a resilience specialist on the mission to helping people adapt, recover and thrive under pressure.
