Preparing for sporting events like the recent Olympics, World Championships, or nation-level tryouts isn’t just physically taxing but also emotionally and psychologically challenging. When you’re competing with top sportspeople in your event, you know you’ll be matched skills for skills. The winning recipe is often your mental strength and how you can handle both triumphs and losses.
Hypnotherapy for sports performance can help an athlete’s personal and professional development. It can help to unlock your true potential, help you recover faster from injury and develop a winning mindset even after setbacks.
The stress effects on sports performance can lead to a lack of concentration and focus, which can tremendously affect the outcome of a game, match, competition or training session.
I’m Susannah Saunders, a clinical psychologist with extensive experience in stress hypnotherapy. With my sports performance hypnosis, you can effectively deal with the stress and pressure associated with your profession and enhance your performance by tapping into your subconscious.
What Is Sports Hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy for sports performance uses different techniques, such as visualisation, positive thinking, etc., to tap into the subconscious mind of an athlete to improve their overall performance.
Sporting events are often extremely stressful situations where your emotions run high, and hormones like adrenaline are pumping through your veins. Sometimes, you’ll experience intense frustration or disappointment if, despite giving it your all, you miss the chance to grab a win, medal, or personal best. This can have a knock-on effect on your performance for the rest of the season, instilling feelings of stress and anxiety.
Sports performance hypnosis can help your self-confidence and self-belief, improve concentration, limit stress and contribute to better recovery techniques.
Common Reasons for Stress Among Athletes
You may be wondering, ‘How does stress affect sports performance?
Chronic stress can severely impact your mental and physical health and sports preparation, performance and recovery. It has been seen that a huge percentage of athletes suffer from burnout, eating disorders, and depression.
Let’s look at some of the common reasons for stress in sports performance and preparation:
Anxiety About Not Qualifying
During sports qualifiers, hundreds of athletes will often be competing for the same spot. This is why there’s always a chance you’ll miss out on qualifying for the finals, sometimes just by a whisker. Thoughts about not qualifying can wreak havoc on your mental health and can cause undue stress and anxiety, negatively impacting your achievements.
Sometimes, setting unrealistic expectations of yourself can also lead to anxiety and panic attacks. For instance, if you’re a defending champion, you’ll often feel added pressure to retain your title, making you stress out more.
Not Fuelling Correctly
Certain sports like wrestling, boxing and weightlifting have strict weight categories, and athletes need to strictly adhere to their diet to be able to compete. This can sometimes lead to eating disorders, often resulting in stress, fatigue and even sleep-related issues. In turn, these issues can lead to a lack of concentration and poor performance.
Sports performance hypnosis can help you work to overcome mental blocks, fight bad eating habits, and help you embrace a more confident and healthier lifestyle.
Injury
Being involved in physical activity or contact sports carries the risk of injury. Sometimes, these injuries can be minor, while at other times, they can be serious, keeping you out of action for months. In these circumstances, it’s common to feel stressed and depressed as you’re forced to stay away from the thing you’re passionate about and have trained so hard for.
During recovery, hypnotherapy for sports performance is as vital as physical therapy. I will work with you to strengthen your mind, positively channel your thoughts and prepare you mentally and emotionally to return to your sport healthily.
How Hypnotherapy Helps With Sports Stress
During my sessions, I will work with you to unravel the damaging effects of stress on sports performance and empower you to take on any new challenges with renewed confidence and vigour. Here’s how sports performance hypnosis can help you:
Concentration and Relaxation
One of the worst stress effects on sports performance is lack of sleep. This can make you feel jittery, full of apprehension and with excess nervous energy. However, for optimal performance, you need to be able to concentrate and be relaxed; otherwise, you’ll be more prone to injury and disappointment.
Through sports performance hypnosis, we work on visualisation and breathing techniques that train your subconscious mind to focus entirely on the task at hand. This will allow you to concentrate without being distracted by your competitor’s performance or the noise or expectations of spectators.
Self-Belief
Negative thoughts can adversely affect your performance and be the biggest roadblock to success. This is especially true if you’re returning after an injury or have been facing a period of lacklustre performances. Through hypnotherapy for sports performance and positive affirmations, I will work to instil self-belief and positive thoughts within your subconscious mind.
Mental Blocks
Self-sabotage or mental blocks can be your worst enemy and defeat you even before you step out to perform. Hypnotherapy techniques such as neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) can help you visualise your winning moves or shots, the winning feeling when you’re on the podium, and the taste of victory.
Through these sessions, I help place mental anchors that can help athletes revisit this positive oasis of thought when they feel a negative feeling overcoming them.
Enhance Your Sports Performance With CityHypno
Hypnotherapy for sports performance, when combined with physical therapy, can streamline your preparation and training and improve your chances of success. I have been helping patients for over two decades through personalised hypnotherapy sessions.
I help to teach athletes new ways of thinking and reacting while pushing their stress threshold. By helping to create a positive internal dialogue, I can help you become your biggest cheerleader. Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, depression, eating disorders or insomnia, I’m here to extend a helping hand.
Reach out to me today or learn more about my treatments.
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