The Inner Armor Podcast

Tracy Hanson: Overcoming Anxiety on the LPGA Tour

After winning ten collegiate titles and the NCAA national championship at San Jose State University, Tracy Hanson played on the LPGA Tour for 16 years, including 10 top-10 finishes and a career-low round of 63.

After retiring from the tour, she has dedicated her time to philanthropy and ministry, starting her own ministry mentoring young female athletes to achieve their potential. Recently, she has begun playing again, qualifying for the US Open in 2022 and some recent Senior LPGA events. Tracy began working with Dr. Royer near the end of her time on the tour.

In this episode, Tracy and Doc talk about forging her inner armor has helped overcome performance anxiety on and off the course.

Tracy Hanson Website

Inner Armor Website

 

 

Tracy Hanson: Forging Inner Armor on the LPGA Tour

After winning ten collegiate titles and the NCAA national championship at San Jose State University, Tracy Hanson played on the LPGA Tour for 16 years, including 10 top-10 finishes and a career-low round of 63.

After retiring from the tour, she has dedicated her time to philanthropy and ministry, starting her own ministry mentoring young female athletes to achieve their potential. Recently, she has begun playing again, qualifying for the US Open in 2022 and some recent Senior LPGA events. Tracy began working with Dr. Royer near the end of her time on the tour.

In this episode, Tracy and Doc talk about how she forged her inner armor and how it has improved her life on and off the course.

Tracy Hanson Website

Inner Armor Website

 

 

Sleep Architecture

In our last episode we talked about what sleep is and why we need it. It turns out that those are very complex questions, because sleep is very complex. It’s not just shutting down the body and resting. In many ways, our bodies are as active during sleep as they are when we are awake, but the brain and body have an agenda, a structured set of tasks and processes that it must accomplish in sequence.

Sleep architecture refers to the basic structural organization of normal sleep. It is broken into phases and subdivided into cycles. The first priority is tissue repair and calorie restoration in muscles and organs. After that, energy is redirected to regenerating and reorganizing brain tissues and neural pathways.

So, when sleep is cut short, only the most basic bodily repair is accomplished. The brain and nervous system are shortchanged, leading to cumulative distress and disorder. That leaves us susceptible to disease. If we are serious about our health, much less performing at our potential, we must build on a solid foundation of restorative and regenerative sleep.

In this episode, Dr. Royer explains how our sleep is organized and how we can optimize it through lifestyle changes and discipline.

Inner Armor Website

Why We Sleep

Before the 1950s, most people believed sleep was a passive activity during which the body and brain were dormant. Over recent decades, science has proven that the brain and body are remarkably active during sleep. Muscles and organs repair and regenerate tissues. Toxins are cleared, and the immune system fights disease, restoring homeostasis. The brain reorganizes memory storage and restores neural pathways. Our sleep may be the most important hours of our day. Just as an airliner can't take off again without getting refuel and maintained, we can't function without sleep. In fact, it may be the most important hours in our daily cycle. Humans can live for weeks without food, but we will die within a few days without sleep.

And yet we shortchange it, overlook it, and sabotage it with our lifestyles. Not only does that undermine our recovery, it makes us susceptible to disease. If we are serious about our health, much less performing at our potential, we must build on a solid foundation of restorative and regenerative sleep.

In this episode, Dr. Royer explains why we sleep and why we must change our approach if we want to achieve health, success, and happiness.

Inner Armor Website

The Father of Stress

Throughout most of modern medical history, specific illness or symptoms were assumed to have specific causes. If your throat hurt, it was an infection or injury to the throat. But Hans Selye (1907 - 1982), who was nominated for the Nobel Prize 17 times, made important scientific research that gave new insights into the non-specific responses of an organism to stress (or “stressors”). Using experiments with laboratory rats, he discovered that placing an organism under general stress causes general illness, with broad symptoms not derived from any specific cause. In fact, Selye was the first to use the word “stress” in a medical context. He defined it as, “...something that, in addition to being itself, was also the cause of itself and the result of itself.” So Selye saw stress-related illness as a loop: the more stressed we are, the sicker we get, and the sicker we get the more stressed we are.

This led to the development of a model for the nexus of stress and illness: the General Adaptation Syndrome. Psychological, physiological, environmental stressors trigger the autonomic nervous system to shift the body into crisis mode through the release of adreneline. This causes profound metabolic changes that must be counterbalanced by rest and recovery. But when stress becomes chronic, the autonomous nervous system’s feedback and response loops become stuck. The results can lead to general loss of thriving, chronic illnesses, and severe metabolic disorder.

Breaking this stress cycle requires gaining greater control over the mind-brain connection, the brain-body connection, and the operations of the ANS. This means changing those feedback loops, providing positive feedback through technology. This is what Dr. Royer has spent his career doing, what he has helped thousands achieve, and what he created Inner Armor to do, so that everyone, from professional athletes to ordinary people, can perform at their potential.

Inner Armor Website

The Neurophysiology of Elite Golf, Part 2

Dr. Royer has helped some of the world’s best professional golfers, on the PGA and LPGA tours, to maximize performance under tournament conditions by aligning their brains and bodies.

In the first of two episodes on the neurophysiology of elite golf, Doc explains the unique challenges that tournament level golf places on the human system, and how technology and training can give a player a competitive edge.

Episode Website

Inner Armor Website

Royer Neuroscience Website

The Neurophysiology of Elite Golf, Part 1

Dr. Royer has helped some of the world’s best professional golfers, on the PGA and LPGA tours, to maximize performance under tournament conditions by aligning their brains and bodies.

In the first of two episodes on the neurophysiology of elite golf, Doc explains the unique challenges that tournament level golf places on the human system, and how technology and training can give a player a competitive edge.

Episode Website

Inner Armor Website

Royer Neuroscience Website

Being Present

To perform to our potential requires us to actually show up. In fact, Woody Allen once said, “Ninety percent of success is just showing up.” But too often, we fail to show up and really be present, focusing on where we are, what we’re doing, and who we’re with.

Often what keeps us from showing up and being present is that we are obsessing about the past and the future. We get caught up in the “What Abouts?” (the past) and the “What Ifs?” (the future). One of the consequences of being caught in the past or present is that we burn up our two most valuable assets: our brain and our time.

We need to learn to shift our brains so that we’re operating in the present tense, not the past or future tenses.

How do we do that? How can Inner Armor help us to preserve our most valuable assets and operate in the present tense?

Episode Website

Inner Armor Website

Royer Neuroscience Website