Players learn the importance of happiness

All Stanford student athletes have access to an array of resources to help them physically, academically and mentally.

Fred Luskin, PhD

The women’s basketball team has an additional resource, short weekly sessions with Dr. Fred Luskin, senior consultant for wellness education with Stanford’s health and human performance center.

Although he’s a world renowned authority on the benefits of forgiveness, with the team “the heart of what I do is more along the lines of the happiness stuff,” he said in a recent phone interview.

He teaches a happiness class for the university and was “surprised at how hard these young people (Stanford students) are on themselves.”

“Being the best will never make you happy”

“It’s a way of the culture. We haven’t taught them that just being the best will never make you happy.”

Therefore, he reminds the players “to be kind to themselves when they fail.”

“It’s good to win, but it’s better to be better and to like themselves,” he said, adding that such people tend to win more often.

The difference between wanting to win and having to win is that the latter causes a lot of stress.

He meets with the team in the locker room for about 15 minutes preceding a practice. This session always includes meditation and the use of positive imagery, such as what each player wants to accomplish in the upcoming practice.

Associate head coach Kate Paye added that he also talks about mindfulness, stress reduction techniques, breathing techniques and wellness.

Players find the sessions helpful

The players enjoy these sessions, she said, and find that the things he talks about are helpful. “If it helps one, two, three – it’s helpful,” she said.

She called him a “wonderful teacher who cares about our team.”

He has done some work with the men’s tennis team and the women’s beach volleyball team, but this is the third year he has worked with WBB.

He started at the request of head coach Tara VanDerveer. “Being able to have Tara as a teacher is a life gift” to the players, he said.

Because his time with the team is so limited, he hasn’t had much time to talk with individual players.

However, he goes to as many games as possible and sits in the family section, where he enjoys meeting the players’ parents and other relatives.

Therapy dogs visit the team

Players enjoy a visit by therapy dogs. (Stanford Athletics)

Yet another example of helping with stress reduction is the recent visit by seven therapy dogs, courtesy of Martha Kessler, executive director of finance and administration for the Department of Health Research and Policy, Spectrum-Translational Research Program, Population Health Sciences, Basic Science Shared Services Consortium and the Department of Structural Biology. 

She also coordinates the university’s therapy pet visits to de-stress student, staff and faculty events.

“Quite possibly the best way to way to end a practice in the history of basketball practices,” says a recent SWBB tweet.

As the “Peanuts” characters say, “Happiness is a warm puppy.”