Welcome to Untangle, the podcast from Muse, the brain-sensing headband that helps you meditate and sleep.

And meditation studio, the five-star app.

I'm Patricia Carpus.

Don't forget to check out the new muse features and content at choosemuse.com.

Today's guest is Dr. Alex Auerbach, sports psychologist and director of wellness and development for basketball team, the Toronto Raptors.

Before working with the Raptors, he was the director of clinical and sports psychology for the University of Arizona.

He's a huge fan of mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy, also called ACT, for

optimizing both the performance and mental health for athletes.

He works with athletes on self-awareness, emotional regulation, and helping them to understand

and even name and ground their often difficult feelings.

Mindfulness is a core pillar in all of his work.

He shares some of the great research that's been done, suggesting that

mindfulness is super helpful for performance and can help lead to that all-important flow state.

Most importantly, there are so many stressors in the life of a professional athlete,

and these tools are great to help with managing stress and tension, as well as being more

resilient to the ups and downs that are a natural part of life. Lots of good stuff here. Now, on

to Alex. Alex, it's really great to have you on Untangle today.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Happy to be here.

Why don't you give us a little background on the work that you're doing as a sports

psychologist with the Toronto Raptors, but also what inspired you into this kind of work with this basketball

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