Tomorrow, Disney-Pixar’s newest animated film, Inside Out, officially releases in theaters. Without giving too many plot spoilers… The movie centers on a young girl, Riley, whose mind is controlled by embodiments of five emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. When her family moves from Minneapolis to San Francisco, her emotions try to help her manage all of the changes that have ensued. I spoke with Premier’s Dr. Allie Wagener earlier this week to talk about how our emotions work and what we can do to manage them while we’re under duress. Inside Out centers around five emotions, but we don't operate using just five emotions—how many emotions are there/do we operate on a spectrum of emotions? Dr. Allie: There is not a limit to how many emotions a person can experience. It’s pretty amazing being a human being that we get to feel an abundance of emotions that range from joy to excitement, fear, love, worry, jealousy, and disappointment to ...

Athletes today fight a very uphill battle when it comes to expectations from themselves and others. While most athletes begin playing sports because of pure enjoyment, expectations often grow alongside young athletes. For athletes at any age to improve physically and mentally in their sport, goal setting is a practiced skill that can too often be underused. In order to develop helpful goals for athletes it is important to understand that there is two primary drives for people in just about any situation. The first being internal drive, and the second being external drive. Internal drive is that feeling of wanting to accomplish something for yourself or perfecting a skill you have worked on for some time. It is the feeling of accomplishment an athlete gets when they know they worked hard and did their best. External drive comes from outside motivators. This is when at athlete feels successful because they outperform their opponent or score the most goals. External drive is not necess...

If you look at any sport team, you will likely find many athletes that incorporate superstitions into their pre-game routines. Michael Jordan wore his University of North Carolina shorts under his uniform in every game of his professional career, insisting that they brought him luck. As a five-time MVP and six-time NBA Champion, it seems there may have been some method to his madness. Crossing borders onto the ice rink, Patrick Roy, one of the best goalies in NHL history, would skate backward toward his net and turn around at the last minute before every game. He believed this would “shrink the net”. (If that's not interesting enough, he would talk to his goal posts and thank them when the puck would ring off them!) New York Mets reliever Turk Wendell would brush his teeth in between every inning and requested a contract of $9,999,999.99 to compliment his uniform number 99. So what is the real story behind superstitions? Why do they develop? And the biggest question: do they help? ...