Mindfulness has a lot to offer for sports performance
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Coaches and athletes searching for better ways to improve sports performance generally find that encouraging mindfulness has a lot to offer.
Encouraging mindfulness has been found to have a great deal to offer sports players. The American Psychological Association reports that coaches and athletes recognize that there is a mental aspect to succeeding in sports. Nurturing mindfulness has been shown to help improve sports performance.
Many psychological studies have supported the vital significance of mental preparation for sports performance. Mental training has however not generally been considered a high priority by the athletic community. Keith Kaufman, PhD, who is a sport psychology practitioner and research associate at The Catholic University of America, has worked with his colleagues to develop a mindfulness program which helps coaches and athletes increase their mental readiness.
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Mindfulness focuses on being aware of the present moment and learning to accept things as they really are without spending time judging them. In this way sports people can focus on performing instead of negative experiences which serve as a distraction, such as anxiety.
Research shows that athletes who completed mindfulness training tended to rate their own performance better and experienced less sports associated anxiety. They generally seemed to feel as if their mental processes were focusing on being in the right zone for optimal sports performance.
The Institute of Sports Performance has reported reactive habits of sports players can be very destructive by allowing nervous energy and negative emotions to take over their mind and body. Becoming mindful has been observed to help sports players prevent these damaging reactive habits. The creation of positive reactive habits with mindfulness helps athletes to become centered mentally and emotionally. Clearly mindfulness has a great deal to offer to help with sports performance.
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