Hypnosis For Sports Preparation: Make Sure You Do Not Choke On The Big Day!
During my viewing of the coverage of the Olympics, I saw an advertisement with a fairly common slogan “high performance when you need it the most” with a bunch of generic sporting imagery and crowds cheering etc.
This type of notion is used to advertise shampoo, car oil, energy drinks and so on. However, it is a notion which I think many people overlook when examining the reality of a sporting occasion like the Olympics.
Team GB’s cycling team dominated events in the velodrome, yet they had not been quite so dominant during the world championships of the past two years. That is because they aim to perform at their peak at the Olympics. If you look at Olympians, especially the gold medal winners, they aimed to peak and be the best they could be at the Olympic games.
Yet many, when faced with high expectations, strong desires to succeed and the emotions, thoughts and pressures of such an event, struggle to the peak.
In fact, some fail, respond badly, or as the media would say, they choke.
Some of the media have even been suggesting that is what happened to diver Tom Daley in Rio. He topped the table in the early round and expectation was high, but then failed to get into the final round, let alone get a medal to add to his collection.
Though I wish it were larger, there is an impressive body of evidence to support the way the mind influences and effects sporting performance and the physiology in general. In my lifetime, there have been so many sporting events I have watched
Mind Influencing Effecting Sporting Performance
In sports, it might occur in an important competition, we all saw how Rory McIlroy lost his healthy lead in the US Masters in Augusta in 2011, before recovering mentally and showing some amazing resilience to go on and win the 2011 US Open golf major in tremendous style a few months later.
Those of us in the UK, in particular, may be familiar with the 1985 World Snooker championship final (watched by 19 million viewers past midnight) The seemingly undefeatable reigning world champion Steve Davis missed a chance to cut in the final black ball in the final frame before Dennis Taylor potted it. The pressure on both players in that final frame was massive and clearly affected their ability.
My own sporting hero, former Nottingham Forest and England left-back, Stuart Pearce was usually a man of steel and nerve, but then missed a crucial penalty when stepping up in the football World Cup semi-final in 1990. He usually scored penalties and free kicks for fun. He then stepped up in the Euro Championships in 1996 to score against Spain under great pressure.
We have seen how tennis players struggle with those important points in big championships, and how our football teams get affected by the crowd when they play away from home.
Preparing Thoroughly For Any Big Event
One of the best ways to prepare for a big occasion, or a sporting event, or a major activity (this could also be exams, interviews or any other activity whereby your thoughts, behaviours and feelings can become intense and detrimentally affect your performance) is to prepare thoroughly, and that is what this hypnosis session is going to help you do.
In order to prepare thoroughly, diligently and in order to ensure you maximise performance, getting your mind into shape, relaxed and prepared is key – this hypnosis audio track is going to help you do just that!!
ENJOY!