Mindfulness, Performance, & Mental Health - NHL Vet & Mindfulness Practitioner Kris Beech

www.nateleslie.ca
www.prepcamp.com
www.lgsports.ca
Kris and I set out to discuss career transition, his mindfulness training practice, and his new exciting project tying it all together. What we uncovered was much richer and meaningful than I had anticipated. .
Kris Beech was touted to be a franchise player in the National Hockey League, drafted #7. At 20 years old he was playing alongside Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh, hoping to live up to the pressure of Top 10 Draft Picks as a Franchise Player. A year later he was playing in the American Hockey League. Most of us, from the outside, would view 7 years in the NHL, 8 years as a pro in Europe, a Calder Cup AHL championship, Swedish Elite League championship, and WHL championship as an incredible career. However the impact highs and lows of Kris' career, and the toll it took on his mental health, remind us there is more to life than that One Big Goal. His journey will touch the hearts and minds of many athletes and parents.
0'-9' - Kris' Career Transition, Mindfulness training, & Master of Science Degree.
9:00' - "Tell me about the moment in your hockey career that mindfulness training became important to you."
"Through that mindfulness exploration I really got inspired to study, and learn other things. As a player over the years I didn’t look into other interests. I was all hockey, despite advice from my parents and other people around me. Having something to occupy my mind other than hockey would have been really good. Once I started investing time in other things I really enjoyed it.
The Impact of Mindfulness on my Life, Mental Health, and Performance
10 years into my career I looked into mindfulness training. It was out of necessity. I've had many ups and downs in my career. Soft skills were lacking from my game. It made for a really tough ride through success and what I would see as failures. I had a lot of high expectations. As a first round top 10 draft pick, 7th overall, you are slated as a potential franchise player. From a young age I was compared to star after star. In my first year in the NHL in Pittsburgh I was playing alongside Mario Lemieux. I had a great year. The next year I got sent down to the minors. That was completely off my radar and really affected who I was as a person. That really challenged my identity as a player who was going to be a star. It affected what I viewed as success for the rest of my career. I was always trying to get to that level. Anything less was seen as failure. I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder at 26. I still got called up that year and played some of the best hockey of my career in Columbus. But it was challenging to say the least. I managed that for another 4 years. It turned out to be an incorrect diagnosis. In Sweden I learned it was Bipolar Disorder. It took me many years to accept that. There were a lot of challenges.
At that point I had lost all self confidence and enjoyment of the game. I was a pro and could still contribute but it was tough. So I chose to make some changes and find the love of the game again. I started to investigate mindfulness. At the time my mother was researching neuroplasticity, how the brain is malleable, and the ability of our brain to make changes. My father was a physician so helped me investigate it more. I started to read more and learn that yes, I have some things going on up there (in my brain), but that I can make changes. That took me to meditation and mindfulness as a way to facilitate neuroplastic changes in the brain. In 2010 some great research came out with strong correlations between neuroplasticity of the brain and mindfulness. I am a man of science so that really hooked me. I sat down in meditative practice one day. It was one of the first times in many years I had some silence and breaks in the negative thought patterns that had been swirling around in my head constantly. Knowing what I had learned about neuroplasticity and understanding my ability as an athlete to commit to practice and repetition. I understood right away that it was something I could rep out and make positive changes. And it did. It helped my performance, helped me uncover my ability and skill again, helped with my well being away from the rink, helped me make more positive life choices that would improve my health. It had a huge impact on my life and inspired me to look into how to share it with other people as a profession."