What do Kobe Bryant (basketball), Derek Jeter (baseball), Misty-May Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings (volleyball), Novak Djokovic (tennis), Seattle Seahawks (football) and many other top athletes and sports teams have in common? They all use mindfulness meditation.
Mindfulness meditation is utilized by these athletes to maintain high
performance during pressure situations, sharpen their mental focus and
clarity, and recover from distractions during competition. In the world
of sports psychology, traditional interventions such as imagery,
self-talk and goal setting have been the standard methods to help
athletes manage distracting thoughts and emotions while training and in
competition. More recently, there has been a shift in sports psychology
away from these traditional methods, because they have been found to
actually increase the focus on distracting thoughts and emotions, which
interfere with performance. Current research
is discovering that, rather than trying to control distractions, it may
be more beneficial for athletes to develop skills to notice the
distractions in a non-judgmental way and let go of them in the moment.
These skills are gained through training in mindfulness meditation.
Both professional and amateur athletes experience emotional
distractions such as frustration, anger, anxiety, self-doubt and worry.
The brain and body, acting together through the connection of the
autonomic nervous system produces emotions. The sympathetic nervous
system and the parasympathetic nervous system usually work in harmony
with each other, but emotional stress cause them to be out of sync,
which blocks performance capacities. The following are some examples of
the consequences of negative emotional distractions on the athlete:
*Less ability to think clearly
*Less efficiency in decision-making
*Less ability to communicate clearly
*Reduced physical coordination
*Inability to perform at the highest skill level the athlete is capable of
Mindfulness meditation is a practice that helps the athlete access
their highest performance level by managing negative emotions in a way
that helps the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems stay in
sync. Sport psychology
professionals can help athletes learn the skills of mindfulness. Even a
small amount of meditation training can be useful to reduce distracting
thoughts and emotions and help the athlete to be able to focus
attention on what matters and only what matters during competition.
To learn more about mindfulness meditation for sport performance, find a sport psychology professional in your area who teaches mindfulness or find a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class that teaches basic mindfulness skills.
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