Mindfulness In Sports
According to sports coach and psychologist Jonathan García-Allen, a significant number of professional athletes have begun to use awareness skills. They have made this choice in addition to applying cognitive behavioral therapy, which is very popular these days. What is all this about? What is mindfulness in sport?
What is mindfulness and how does it apply to sports?
Mindfulness is a technique based on focusing all your attention on what you are doing at the moment, without judgment and with minimal filtering. The goal is to teach your mind methods so that it can manage thoughts, feelings, reactions, and attitudes in the different situations that can arise. In this way, consciousness seeks to raise awareness through positive attitudes, self-knowledge, and freedom.
This method seems to be ideal when applied to sports. After all, practice, match, or confrontation requires complete concentration to achieve optimal performance.
Mindfulness leads you to the so-called “flow state”. Have you ever felt so focused on an activity that you felt like you were going with the flow as you did it? This is exactly what athletes strive for during the most important moments of their competitions. And it can be achieved with this technology.
How does mindfulness in sports affect people?
According to what we’ve seen so far, awareness skills are effective for all types of profiles. It is logical to think that athletes are no exception to the advantages and benefits of this technology. How do you think awareness affects them?
- Awareness is an effective technique to increase an athlete’s motivation. Clearly, this is necessary to achieve optimal performance.
- It is also important for each individual’s activation level. The more focused and active an athlete is, the more effective he or she is in his or her job.
- This technique activates optimal stress levels. In such a situation, stress should not be seen as something negative. It is clear that during the competition it is necessary. And that’s where consciousness comes into play. It forces stress to reach optimal levels that increase the athlete’s competence.
- It should be noted that this technique succeeds in increasing an individual’s self-esteem and confidence. Logically, an athlete who fully trusts his abilities is essential to effective competition.
- In addition, awareness skills are very effective when it comes to interpreting successes and failures. An athlete can end his career when there is no success and he experiences constant failure. But with a sensible and balanced view of things, his assessment reaches common sense.
- This also serves as an effective tool to connect a group of athletes. Mindfulness can create an optimal collective environment that benefits interpersonal relationships within a group of people.
Mindfulness in sports acts as a leader of emotions
As you can see, well-suited mental health can be a very effective technique in sports. It enhances athletes ’self-confidence to achieve optimal performance. In this way, people accept their feelings and thoughts and control them naturally without the need to change or remove them.
This technique seeks to achieve a state of self-awareness and emotional regulation that allows for effective control, not elimination. This leads to a “flow state”, the moment when everything flows and seems to be in perfect harmony. A state where the functions you perform do not seem to require any effort.
Therefore, achieving effective acceptance status at this point is key. People allow themselves to be drawn in and enjoy the present moment instead of thinking too much and trying to control everything. Such behavior increases concentration, moves away from negative thoughts, and gives more performance to the sport.
And we know that awareness skills in sport can be a very useful and effective technique to improve the performance of athletes. In a state of emotional balance where everything flows effortlessly, getting the best possible performance from yourself is not just a challenge, but a state that you can also enjoy.
