don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Like a bazillion others across the planet, I've been following the Olympics. As one who participated in many sports and still dabbles in a few, I identify with runners, swimmers, bikers, and basketball and volleyball players. However, I also derive thrills from the drama and wondrous feats on display in other disciplines, including a few I realized early on were not suited to my risk-taking tendencies (e.g., gymnastics and diving). The Beijing Olympics has been a grand circus in the best sense, despite the sub-surface recognition that the host nation with the dazzling venues, extraordinary scenery, historic monuments and dazzling shows is, behind the theatrical mask of it all, a brutal, dehumanizing totalitarian police state. However, none of this can change by my getting all bummed out about it, so the mind tries and succeeds for a while at focusing on The Games. Besides, no four-legged animals were harmed in the production of the dazzling pageantry, so far as we know. Amnesty International may not be happy with the Chinese Olympics, but at least PETA isn't complaining.

As publisher of a wellness newsletter and enthusiast for a wellness mindset, I wondered if there might be a wellness way of experiencing, assessing, enjoying and making sense of the festivities. 

I think there is. This is my wellness perspective on The Games.

Start with the foundation idea that a wellness outlook entails choices. Then realize that we all have choices to make with regard to how we view the proceedings. This applies for athletes and viewers. All the athletes, win or lose, have such choices, as do all those watching on TV.

Let's focus at first on the participants - the competitors. What are a few of the key choices they have to enhance or diminish the Olympic experience? It is easy to exult and celebrate a gold medal - that comes naturally. Similarly, it is not hard to find victory and attendant joy, exuberance and fulfillment in silver or bronze. But, not winning presents a greater but even more important challenge: Go with the first feelings or think it through and make a wellness-supportive choice. This comes up more often than not, since few Olympians win medals, and most don't get close. 

Thus, the wellest among them will choose interpretations that enable joy, exuberance and fulfillment. This should not be hard to do -- IF an awareness of the availability of wellness-supportive choices is consciously appreciated before arriving at The Games. These competitors are, after all, Olympians - and can always be proudly marked by that fact. As one US boxer (Shawn Estrada) observed after losing his bout, "It's the Olympics, and there are no such things as bad days at the Olympics."

The athletes will always have the satisfaction of knowing that they were in Beijing in the summer of 2008. They once earned the ultimate trip, the opportunity to represent their countries, give it a best shot, experience the setting and the dramas, march in the parades, see the venues and live up close and personal for a spell while in China at a particularly notable time. The particulars of reflections and thanksgivings for good fortune in being there will vary but the rewards for such pauses and reflections are the same - quiet satisfaction and acknowledgement of goals realized by personal dedication and a little (or a lot) of help from friends. Yes, some athletes pull up lame, fall off bars, blow dives, land poorly, hit a hurdle (literally or figuratively) and otherwise have to deal with disappointments, but they still had astounding life experiences. The wise and the well (ness) oriented will choose a positive perspective. This is even more important for those who expected or hoped to win something but did not. 

A wellness mindset creates more opportunities in all situations. Consider, for example, the suitability to the athletes of varied wellness skill areas for high performance.

• Stress management - Allows control of one's emotions during the lead up to the moment of truth. Such subset skills as the management of time and resources gives a heightened awareness of the surroundings and the multiple variables that play a role in doing well. Also part of stress management skills would be an ability to wisely time energy expenditures, to relax and focus, to release tension at just the opportune moment. All this and more requires the utmost in personal mastery of feelings and mental acuteness of the highest order. In other words, stress management at the peaks of perfection.
  
  
• Nutrition and physical/mental fitness - Obviously, all athletes are fit beyond the pale. Everyone in Beijing competing in The Games has exercised at levels most of us could hardly imagine. However, Olympians must also strike just the right balance between extreme exertions and rest/recovery in order to avoid overuse and other injuries. Instances of untimely injuries got almost as much attention (consider the fate of world champion hurdler Liu Xiang of China) as the feats of aqua god Michael Phelps, the Jamaican lightening bolt (Usain Bolt) and the aging beyond belief accomplishments of Dara Torres and a few other senior performers.
  
  
• While on the subject of nutrition, I must say I lost a little enthusiasm for Mr. Phelps (though no less admiration for his achievements) when I read that he made a deal to appear as the poster boy on Frosted Flakes cereal boxes. Frosted Flakes has three times the amount of sugar as Wheaties and 1/3 the fiber, according to the story of this infamous deal reported by Drudge. Like nutritionist Rebecca Solomon of Mount Sinai Medical Center I, too, "would rather see him promoting Fiber One. I would rather see him promoting oatmeal. I would even rather see him promoting Cheerios."
  
  Truth be told, I would rather see him promoting the Ardell Wellness Report!
  
• Critical thinking, reason and effective decision-making skills - Emotional intelligence and perspective played a big role in close contests. There were many interviews wherein an athlete demonstrated well-developed reasoning skills (e.g., Tyson Gay - a world champion hobbled by injuries unable to perform at his best was a model of resigned and quite functional equanimity) and a few who did not think quite so clearly, such as an American sprinter who stumbled over a hurdle, and later declared "everything happens for a reason" without explaining the reason or how such a universe is possible or who/what might be behind all those endless reasons for all things. I thought the reason was pretty simple - she banged into a hurdle - a chance thing at this level of competition. In countless ways, reasoning ability mattered, given the challenge of dealing with so much information required for success, including awareness about oneself, the competition and the dynamics of the given event. 
  
  
• Fun and play - While endorsement deals, contracts, national pride and all manner of things are at stake for many if not most of the performers, those with a wellness perspective know that it's still vitally important to enjoy the process, no matter what. It seemed that athletes were able to do so, most of the time and not just during the opening ceremonies. One of my favorite examples came from the one person in the Olympics that I actually know personally, 33-year-old Laura Bennett, whose father and I have been racing each other in triathlons for 25 years as competitors in the same age group. Laura finished fourth in the triathlon. This, as you know, is just one place away from a medal. Asked if she felt like "the first loser," she laughed and replied: "No, I don't take it like that. This is a world-class field and I've done everything I can to be here. I was happy with my road to get here, and that was the best I could do on the day. You can't fault yourself for that ."
  
  
• Relationships - Winning matters but so does good sportsmanship and working with others. I thought the athletes for the most part did well in that regard after races and contests of varied kinds. This seemed evident in all the major sports, particularly gymnastics, swimming (relays) and track and field. Oddly, the cordiality factor was most notable in the rare cases when it was NOT on display, such as at the boxing venues (controversial, very subjective judging) and when the Greco-Roman wrestler from Sweden (Ara Abrahamian) stomped out of an awards ceremony, leaving his bronze medal behind. That, in itself, conveyed an unspoken wellness message -- better to be gracious, even if you are convinced a grievous injustice was foisted upon you.
  
  
• Meaning and purpose - There is life after the Olympics, but it's a great challenge and a wellness skill to always know the reality of this fact and the importance of perspective in the first moments after an epic letdown. (Or a triumphant success, for that matter.) This is especially so if approximately 1.3 billion of your countrymen and women choose to participate in a maniacal form of gnashing of national teeth due to your failure to win a gold medal, as expected. I refer, of course, to the plight of champion hurdler Liu Xiang, too injured to defend his title. As George Vecsey wrote in an article addressed to the people of the host country, "It's all right. The athletes of China are leading the Olympics in gold medals by a huge margin. Your young people are the sweetest, most prepared volunteers any Olympics have ever seen. Your government has organized an efficient Olympic games. The new hotels are comfortable. The new subway lines are splendid. Your children are talented. Traffic is moving. The air is not as bad as we feared. The gold medals continue. It's all right." (George Vecsey, A Country Feels a Hurdler's Pain, New York Times, August 18, 2008.)

If life were fair and justice universal, the Beijing Olympics, with all the thrills, spills and chills would represent enough DRBU equivalents to last nearly everyone a lifetime. However, that could happen only if both the modest and the out-sized best of time sensations and pleasures could be stored for use, whenever needed or desired, for years to come. Unfortunately, DBRU equivalents are much like vitamins and exercise in that they are perishable - after a few hours or days at most, the great and other sensations no longer deliver the excitement and feel good power of the initial hits. New DBRUs, just like new sources of vitamins and fresh exercise workouts, are required to sustain and animate us at quality of life levels consistent with the quality heights of wellness.

Michael Phelps, the future face of Frosted Flakes and the biggest star of The Games, told Bob Costas of NBC that his long-term goal is to have the impact on swimming that Michael Jordan had on basketball and Tiger Woods on golf. That may seem pretty ambitious, but more than a few believe he has already achieved that goal.

How many of us even bother with long-term goals anymore? It's a wellness - friendly thing to do. I do it. My long-term goals are to change thinking about what constitutes a normal way of life, boost this country's standing in the world (no big deal, given the depths to which George Bush has sunk it), save the planet from pollution and rising temperatures (a bit tougher), solve the energy and health care crises (really hard), prevent war forevermore (a daunting challenge - maybe a bit of a reach), inspire prosperity across the planet, live long enough to produce E-AWR # 500 and still have time to be useful, if called upon for high level diplomatic service, preferably as ambassador to Australia. To protect against disappointment, I've decided that the realization of any one of the above goals will do nicely.

Which, I suppose, could be a final wellness point to make about these Games - they show (as do my long term goals) that it's always wise to give yourself a fallback position.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MEANING DOMAIN under the skill area of applied wellness. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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