Hypnosis in Sports

Hypnosis in sports has been around since the beginning of sports.

Any sport you can name has an end game.  Is it to score as many points as possible like baseball, basketball, football, boxing, soccer?  Or is the end game to score the least, as in golf or swimming (times)?  Whatever the sport, there are rules and a desired end result which are specific and visual. The many variables that go into winning have to do with practice, repetition, desire, focus, motivation, being teachable, etc. Mindset, that popular word of today, always comes into play.  The concept of Mindset is more than the cliche “Be Positive.” When tested with great competition, how does positive thinking stack up?  When physical pain or emotional distress increase, how does positive thinking measure up? Here’s where hypnosis in sports comes in. To elevate the mind and body to perform at peak levels, regardless of distractions.

Hypnosis in sports is a legal supercharger for performance.

Within the rules of the game we have always looked for a better way, a competitive edge. That’s exactly what hypnosis in sports is about.  The Inner Game of Tennis (Gallwey) kicked off the avalanche of books and articles written about developing focus and concentration and “rising above.”

An hypnosis session programing the mind with post hypnotic suggestions about great hand eye coordination, braking personal records, excellent focus, seeing the shot, the proper form, the time at the finish line, etc. just makes sense. Done with consistency, the brain cells that fire together, wire together and performance gets better. Voluntary as well as involuntary muscles coordinate better. Respiration, circulation and the voluntary as well as involuntary nervous systems produce hand eye coordination improvement. Hypnosis in sports is the epitome of “Thoughts are things.”

Sports Rituals

Most sports therapists create rituals (trigger mechanisms) for their proteges. As a stabilizing, focusing attention getter, some mental and/or physical ritual is used just before a practice or event. Some are intricate and some simple. For hundreds of athletes I’ve worked with, I simply teach to close the eyes, take two deep breathes, and then silently and in the best of terms tell themselves how they’re going to perform. If practicing regular hypnosis sessions each day, the two breathes allow them to drop deeply into a relaxed state immediately. The openness of that “State” allows the suggestions to really go deeper and have more impact as they anchor to the post hypnotic suggestions for excellence they’ve been programing in regular sessions.

One of the truths in sport as in life is, “a little shift in consciousness makes a huge bottom line difference.” Use this 10 second, mini version of a hypnosis session before physical performance and see the difference over1-3 weeks.  Use regular hypnosis sessions each night before going to sleep to get the more powerful effect from your suggestions.

 Enjoy!

For more information on this and other subjects relating to NLP certification, contact my friends at INLP.org