mindfulness for sporting performance

“Our thoughts influence our actions and our actions influence our thoughts… each physical movement has a mental component” Dr. Doug Gardner- Sports Psychologist.

As an athlete or performer of any type, the ability to modulate and control thoughts of pain and emotions can give a competitive edge and improve performance outcome. For example, in the heat of the moment if an athlete can recognise unproductive thoughts and redirect the thought through mindfulness training, anxiety and body tension will reduce helping the athlete to enhance performance.

When the mind starts running away with thoughts from the past or what may happen in the future it can create a stress response causing muscle tension as well as affecting our:

• Focus
• Concentration
• Behaviour
• Ability to ignore internal distractions – anxiety, fear
• External distractions – noises, other people
• Decisions at the very time we need to be making good ones

Mindfulness helps the mind to focus on the present moment by helping to calm the stress response in the brain allowing us to notice our thoughts and emotions without getting attached to them. Basically it is short-circuiting the body’s stress response by decreasing the resting Cortisol (the stress hormone) levels creating a stronger mind-body connection.

This heightened sense of awareness of our body and improved communication between the body and mind – helps us to make split second adjustments even before we’re consciously aware of what’s going on - before those factors have a chance to impact our performance.

Practicing mindfulness trains the part of the brain that creates a calm, alert state of mind, helping us to stay focused, avoid distraction and perform at our best. It can help to generate ‘flow’ - a state of complete focus on the task in hand – which has been linked to enhanced performance.