FitnessMental Health

How athletes can help us improve our performance

4 Mins read

Have you ever wondered how the most successful athletes perform at their best every day? Sure, their extremely healthy and fit but how do they remain focused every game? Even with pressure from their team or fans, some will still dominate and remain successful. But even outside of sports many of an athlete’s regime, can be applied to a normal person, so we will be going over some practices that athletes use to stay at their best mentally.

Organisation is essential.

It’s important to note, not every athlete is born with deep focus or a high amount of confidence, most of them have built up these skills gradually. They are people just like the rest of us and will experience all kinds of emotions during their careers.

The key skill for all of this is organisation. Developing yourself by using any of these techniques requires you to do at least a bit frequently. You must make sure you try to plan out your day before hand. Try getting a planner or a journal if it makes it easier.

Exercise helps you more than you think.

Usually, we associate an athlete with being extremely fit and healthy. We know that exercise is the backbone for how they perform in sports but how does it help in other ways? Not only does it make you more fit, but it can help with anxiety and focus. Researchers have found that exercising can work as effectively as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression. This is because exercise helps you feel calmer and more energized, which lowers how stressed you feel.

Visualization

The benefits of visualization can be surprising for people that aren’t familiar with the idea. Although it can help you with performance, confidence, and focus. Using techniques like mental rehearsal, which is using your imagination to practice a skill, has been proven to work. A study looking at mental rehearsal had a group of basketball players visualise their free throws for a month with no physical practice. They found that the group who visualised improved by 23% compared to the group that did physically practice who improved by 24%. This means mental rehearsal can develop your motor skills even when you’re not physically engaged in the activity. Why might this be the case? Just like with practice, understanding a technique by repeating it makes it easier each time. Imagining a task vividly is the same as physically practicing it for the brain. Besides helping you get better at sports; visualisation helps athletes prepare for the future. Having an idea of what can occur in advance reduces the risk of players feeling anxious when they confront it.

  • Find somewhere that’s quiet, where you can relax.
  • Close your eyes and take some slow deep breathes
  • As you breathe feel your lungs rise and contract slowly, feel you body relax along as you exhale
  • Once you feel completely relaxed, begin to imagine the task you want to practice.
  • This could range from anything. It could be from football to even fencing.
  • As you begin to imagine the task try to make the sensations as vivid as you can. Imagine the sound, the feeling and how it looks.
    • For example, if you’re practicing a free throw, imagine the feeling of the basketball and how the ball goes into the net.
  • Repeat this several times.

Improving focus

Focus is one of the most important tasks for developing your performance in sports. There are many ways to improve your concentration, but you must make sure your basic habits are benefiting you mentally, here are some ways people can develop it.

  • Have a sleep routine. Many of us go to bed at different times or too late. Doing this can mess up our internal body clock and lower our sleep quality. For athletes in particular, sleep quality is important for getting good recovery after exercise too.  Making sure we sleep on time will help us wake up with more energy.
  • Don’t multitask too much. Currently, you will find people watching a show, while using your smart phone and eating a meal. Doing this will seem enjoyable but if we always multitask, we lose our ability to focus on one thing. Even removing your smart phone for a small time helps improve cognition according to researchers.
  • Practice. If you have a specific activity/hobby you want to improve at practicing is the most well-known way of improving your focus. In doing so you won’t have to think as much when you’re doing the task.
  • Take breaks. There’s a limit to how long you can focus until you will begin to get tired. Find what works for you. There are some studies that state we can focus for up to 45- 90 minutes until we can’t concentrate. Ensure your breaks are short too, 15- 20 minutes is fine as it won’t be too long before you start working again.

Positive self-talk

How you treat yourself can affect your performance in anything.  A study looking at athletes at a shooting range found the less confident ones performed worse. However, even without this study it can be easily understood why having self confidence is so important. It makes you handle pressure better; you are less anxious, and you have more energy to put into your activities.  Visualisation will help raise your comfort and confidence, but positive self-talk can be vital for people who have a lot of doubt.  Self-talk reflects how we think about the world in relation to ourselves.  This can vary for everyone as some people will be more pessimistic than others. Research on positive self-talk has shown it can improve self-efficacy, performance, and confidence, whilst lowering anxiety. Positive self-talk can be approached in many ways, but the most important component is self-awareness. Being more aware lets you identify any negative conversations you have with yourself.  But following this what are some ways we can treat ourselves better?

  • Pay attention to friends and family.  Our negative self-talk can come from anywhere, friends or relatives that throw insults can cause more doubt. Its important to pay attention to who you surround yourself with.
  • Take care of yourself. There will always be days where you’re in a bad mood, so try to find ways around this, you can play upbeat music or take a walk in the park. Having a better mood will make you more optimistic.
  • Don’t be too serious. Taking things seriously is important but there must be a balance. Athletes must make sure their approach is diligent but that doesn’t mean you can’t be easy going outside of training.
  • Notice any negative thoughts. As soon as you identify what comments you make or believe about yourself that are bad you can begin to address them with positive affirmations.
  • Making positive dialogue. Improving your internal dialogue is important, we can address this in different ways. This can range from meditation, having a mantra or just treating ourselves with better self-care.
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