Medical Hypnoanalysis Can Help
You Reach Your Personal Best
Athletic Performance
U. S. teams and those of other nations recognize that the influence of psychic preparation is just as essential as physical practice. Olympic athletes use self-hypnosis to help them attain top performance. Russian teams are taught mental conditioning from the beginning of training. For the typical person, Medical Hypnoanalysis cannot turn a golfing duffer into a global champion. Factors, skills and abilities other than mental are implicated. But hypnosis can be used to allow a player to realize his or her personal best!
Time magazine reported, in a cover story on the 1984 Olympics, that on the darkness before the finals in women's gymnastics Mary Lou Retton, at that time age 16, lay in bed at Olympic Village mentally rehearsing her routine ritual. She had done the same on hundreds of preceding nights, visualizing herself performing all her routines flawlessly in her mind all the moves and rehearsing them yet again and over again. The end result was a routine of flawlessness, presented with charisma, composure and coolness, culminating in a gold medal.
"What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve!" Evidence of that declaration has been provided innumerable times. Mary Lou pictured a faultless routine in her mind. Her body fashioned it. The same capability is accessible to any sports devotee. If the skills and synchronization abilities do not come to Olympic levels, they can bring the player to the heights of personal best, providing new levels of attainment and fulfillment.
To prepare the body to the limits of its capabilities not including concurrently exercising the mind is to invite, at best, mediocrity. Sports psychologists have claimed that for Olympic teams 80 percent of an athlete's performance is in the mind. Championship players in nearly every type of competition have echoed this conviction.
What The Mind Can Do
Mental practice, also termed visualization, can generate and confirm the self-assurance needed to realize top performance. The picture visualized in the mind can prove to the subconscious that attainment is achievable. The automatic nervous system performs in precisely the identical way followed during a physical rehearsal. Neuromuscular synchronization improves. What your mind can conceive, you can achieve. If you can think it and see it in your mind, you can do it!
What can be accomplished through the powers of the mind? Perhaps most important is the improvement of positive attitudes. Negative thoughts pertaining to performance skills can be altered or eliminated. Enjoyment of the sport will be improved to a key point as skills get better to the point where irregular incidents of poor performance no longer provoke frustration, rage, dissuasion or damaging emotional reaction. Concentration, coordination, technique all can improve as well as awareness of proper form and posture.
Sports enthusiasts face the same stumbling blocks that people have to deal with in other areas of life - business, personal relationships, and achievement of goals and ambitions. The biggest of all is fear, and fear comes in countless forms. Fear of failure is at all times restraining and is extremely widespread in sports, as is its concealed colleague, fear of success-an apprehension that accomplishment can produce the anticipation (among others) of additional enhancement. Fear of embarrassment can be strong. Many golfers experience near terror on the first tee where people may be watching the first drives. Competition can produce sensations of intimidation resulting in deterioration of skills.
Medical Hypnoanalysis, or properly learned and applied self-hypnosis, can work to reduce or eliminate the mental obstacles to peak performance in sport activities. This is an area in which the truth of the phrase "what the mind can conceive, the body can achieve" becomes highly evident.
The Steps To Achievement
The goal of hypnosis in its applications is not the learning or acquisition of the basic skills involved though these could be helped through hypnosis as used in enhancing learning skills. The goal is to enable the athlete to achieve the best personal level, performing at peak. As with virtually all hypnosis, the first step must be relaxation. Relaxation to a level appropriate for the implanting of hypnotic suggestion is not really resting. It is deep, and can be brought about through a hypnotherapist. Or it can be learned from a teaching hypnotherapist or even through study and practice using any of several excellent books on the subject.
Goal-setting is essential. Without having an objective, it is pointless to begin a task, project or trip. Goals may be set by athletes, coaches or therapists or a combination thereof. It is important for goals to be specific, focussed on the area in which improvement is desired. Playing better tennis is not a valid goal. Improving a serve or backhand is a goal. Goals must be short-term achievable and step by step, so that both success and completion are experienced.
Concentration is vitally important, and sometime difficult to develop. Medical Hypnoanalysis has long been an effective means of improving concentration capabilities. Distractions must be eliminated. Post-hypnotic cues may prove useful in stimulating both concentration and specific skills. Visualization, not just in mental rehearsing, but at the moment of performance can produce dramatic results.
Training only the body and ignoring the mind invites a mediocre performance. Hypnosis won't turn the weekend warrior into a national champion, but it can help anyone achieve his or her personal best. How? By arming them with improved concentration, a clearer focus on goal achievement, the ability to visualize, and most importantly, a strong positive attitude.
Most sports psychologists will agree: 80 percent of an athlete's performance is due to attitude and mental conditioning. Concentration is vital, but sometimes difficult to develop. Medical Hypnoanalysis has long been an effective means of improving concentration skills. Post-hypnotic suggestion can help.
Goal setting is also essential. Without a goal, it is pointless to begin any task. A goal must be specific. Otherwise it would be impossible to tell when the goal was reached. Playing better tennis is too general, but improving a serve or backhand is easily attainable, and successful attainment is easily recognized.
Visualization can also provide an essential element to achieving success. Mental rehearsal before the performance can lead to increased confidence during the performance. Visualization at the moment of performance can also produce dramatic results.
In 1980, tests of world-class Russian athletes showed that mental training was far more productive of improvement than physical training! Electro-physiological testing had indicated the dramatic value of mental imaging as early as 1932.
Hypnosis cannot make unskilled people into champions, but it can generate performance at or near "personal best" levels. Hypnosis to improve athletic performance deals with four categories: goal setting, relaxation, concentration and rehearsal. Goals need to be written down; relaxation relieves tension; concentration removes distractions; mental rehearsing has proven more productive than physical practice. Olympic athletes use it often with superb results. Mental processes do not remove the need for physical training and practice, but can maximize productive results.
Imagery should include all the senses, and not be limited to just the visual. A diver, for example, would "see" the form of the dive, "smell" the chlorine, feel the wetness of entering the water, and hear the cheers of the crowd. Perfection requires the use of all senses.
Many professionals employ some form of self-hypnosis to help them achieve their success. Mary Lou Retton, for example was only 16 when she won the gold medal in1984. The night before the competition, she laid in bed and mentally rehearsed her performance. Just as she had many times before, she imagined herself going through the routine. She saw her body performing the moves; she felt the impact as her hands grabbed the bars. She imagined herself performing all her routines perfectly-seeing herself in her mind, going through all the moves with charm, poise and confidence. The result was a perfect performance, and a gold medal.
Most important is the positive attitude. Medical Hypnoanalysis can change negative and eliminate performance anxieties. The occasional poor performance will no longer cause irritation, anger, discouragement or any other detrimental emotional reaction. Performance anxieties related to fear of failure, fear of humiliation or even the fear of success (the apprehension that success will cause others to expect even further improvement) can also be dealt with and eliminated. As a result, concentration, coordination, and technique will all improve. Enjoyment will be greatly enhanced.
Finally, mental rehearsal is the ultimate key to superlative performance. It can prove more productive than physical practice. Imagery is not merely visual in nature; it can include all the senses. In a diving competition, the form of the dive is visual; the smell of the chlorine water is olfactory; the wetness of the entry is sensory, the cheers of the crowd are auditory. Perfection requires the use of all senses.