When he’s teaching mindfulness to athletes, Chad McGehee often refers to their competitive state as being like the eye of a hurricane.
It may appear calm where they’re standing, but their surroundings are volatile.
“That could be 80,000 people in a stadium,” McGehee said. “That can be interactions with media. That could be what’s going on in one’s personal life.”
McGehee, 38, offers mindfulness — practice of using mental exercises to cope with stresses of the world — as a way of training to avoid the swirling winds.
Among those he works with are law enforcement officers, students and college athletes, who operate in an environment where mental health has become a more topical issue.