Professional
Athletes Using Hypnosis to Enhance Mental Toughness and Peak
Performance
By Dr. Jack
Singer
Certified Sport
Psychologist
As they get older and put more mileage on
their bodies, proactive thinking professional athletes look for
an edge. Much of the training and coaching that professional
athletes receive works on the logical brain, the left
brain. Game plans,
strategies, knowing what to do in a specific situation...all
fire up the left brain.
Frequently, the right brain is ignored. Balance, music,
emotions, visualization and
self-hypnosis
all involve the right brain. The smart
athlete practices skills that tap into both the left and right
brains.
I receive calls weekly from professionals who recognize that
their bodies will not always be able to support the wear and
tear and therefore, they would like to learn mental skills to
compensate. There are
many techniques that Certified Sport Psychologists use to help
such athletes, but by far the most powerful technique in my
arsenal is Hypnotic
Sport Psychology.
Those Sport Psychologists who teach hypnosis
and self-hypnosis to athletes help them with such skills as
intensity, focus, consistency, concentration and anxiety and
anger control.
Moreover, hypnosis can be used
with teams to enhance team dynamics, intra-team communications,
mutual goal setting and intra-team cohesion.
A favorite technique that I use with huge success, I call
the
hypnotic mental toughness
game plan.
I use this technique with athletes whose sport involves going
up against an opponent(s), such as football, basketball,
boxing, motor sports, tennis, soccer, wrestling, hockey,
etc.
I ask the athlete to describe in detail
everything he/she knows about her/his
opponent.
For example, for an NFL
football player, I want to know what specific techniques
and moves the opponent has used in the past against my
athlete.
Accordingly, what specific
techniques and moves has my athlete used with success
against him?
For a tennis player, I want
to know how the opponent has won games from my athlete in
the past, what she/he does in certain game situations
(such as moving toward the net), and what strategies have
worked for my athlete against this specific opponent
(even if only a few games were won against
him/her).
The same data that would be obtained in
breaking down film is very valuable for me (utilizing the
athlete's specific language) in designing a hypnotic program
aimed at overcoming the opponent when they next
meet.
This hypnotic technique goes well beyond
"visualization" that is often taught to athletes. While under
hypnosis, my athlete is not only visualizing success in his
next game, but he is planting optimistic seeds in the beautiful
garden of his subconscious mind that are each related to
specific
moves and strategies that are
designed to work against a specific opponent, whom he can
visualize defeating.
So, with the athlete's help, we design a
mental toughness
game
plan
each week and (if the athlete is not local) I fed ex a CD
series of that game plan each week for the athlete to master.
This certainly gives the pro athlete an edge and I refer to it
as the athlete's "
unfair
advantage!"
(Obviously, these techniques are not simply
reserved for professional athletes, but the use of game films,
for example, to design my game plans are harder to come by with
junior athletes.
In such cases, I rely on
the athlete and coaches to give me the information I
need.)
Jack
Singer,
Ph.D
Certified Sport Psychologist
Certified Sport
Hypnotherapist
Contact Me
1-800-497-9880
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