Sports Hypnosis

  "WHAT YOUR MIND CAN CONCIEVE, YOU CAN ACHIEVE."

Sports Hypnotherapy Peterborough for the elite and amateur sportsman and woman, regardless of your sport, the desire for constant improvement is a characteristic that inspires you to be your best. There are three main factors that influence our sporting ability, technical skills, mental skills, and fitness. Although many sports performers will spend a lot of time on their fitness and technical skills, the mental side is often neglected.

Whether you simply want to feel more motivated to go to the gym, or whether you need a competative edge to win. With the skillfull use of hypnosis any obstacles can be removed from your mind leading you effortlessly towards your goals.

Currently, hypnosis in sport is mainly used to control the athlete's emotional experience, that is, to control anxiety levels, to regulate concentrational demands, to stimulate aggressive behaviour when appropriate, to enhance motivation, to instill self-confidence and pride, and to inhibit any psychological factors that often serve to limit physical performances.

All professional sports persons will know the importance of having a well tuned mind in order to excel in their sports performance. You can find yourself performing badly because you are not using your mind in a positive way. It is fast becoming reconized that Psychotherapy in sport can be a great asset.

Sports Hypnotherapy uses Psychology and Hypnosis to help you enhance your mental strength, overcome your sports injuries, and improve your performance, focus and concentration in training and competitions. It is particulary effective for building self confidence, overcoming poor past performances, and visualising new or complicated techniques. 

By changing how we use our minds when we approach a game by enhancing self belief, dealing with how we respond to commiting errors, setting out goals and maintaining a positive attitude. It is possible to make a significant impact on our performance.

The Power Of Visualisation is Described in The Following Points

• Visualisation allows you to practice and prepare for events and eventualities you can never  train for in reality. With practice it allows you to enter a situation you have never physically experienced.
• Visualisation allows you to prepare and practice your response to physical and psychological problems that do not occur normally. This means if they do occur you responed confidently.
• Visualisation allows you to pre-experience the achievements of goals, This in turn helps to give you confidence that these goals can be achieved, and allows you to increase your performance.
• Practicing the relaxed state of hypnosis helps you to break down the complex skills into consitituant parts so that you can isolate where problems are.

Some of the main areas where hypnotherapy can help are listed below.

• Competition Nerves
• Performance Enhancement
• Motivation
• Recovering from injuries
• Mental Blocks
• Confidence
• Improving Concentration and Focus
• Overcomming Slumps in Performance
• Managing Emotions
• Perfomance Nerves
• Unhelpful Belief Patterns
• Positive Visualisation
• Anxiety in the competition Arena
• Perfomance Rehearsal
• Unconsious conditioned Responses

Every sport benefits from relaxed concentration and so every sporting performance can be helped with the use of Hypnotherapy

Below are a few examples of how hypnosis is currently being used in sports.

Golf - Perfect swing, putting, Hitting over hazards, Teeing off. These are just a few of the areas hypnosis can help in golf. These can be adapted to other sports such as football, taking penalties or saving penalties. Serving in Tennis, Athletics, quick of the blocks. Hypnotherapy can help in all sports.

Team Performances

Football, Rugby, or Hockey players are hypnotised in a group or individual setting and then asked to mentally visualise themselves executing precise skills. They are then presented a posthypnotic suggestion that they will be able to translate these visualisations into action during the game or practice at the same level of expertise that they had visualised. Most crucial her is that, during the visualisation sessions, the athletes are instructed that while visualising the various skills , there will be a concomitant physical experience in their bodies. this leads to strenghtening of neural patterns through hypnotic mental imagery, which reinforces neuromuscular co-ordination.

Individual Performances 1

When competing against one particular opponent, a young golfer, or this could be a (tennis player, darts player, bowls player, or any other athlete) feels stressful and consequently performs badly. This happens over and over again against the same person, but not against any other opponents. his belief of not being able to perform is reinforced every time he meets this particular opponent. This is obviously an emotional problem and not a matter of poor technique. In this situation hypnosis is used to influence the emotions and attidudes of the golfer to focus attention on particular relevant cues to improve his golf game. A suggestion such as block out the entire environment on each shot  and concentrate on the rhythm of your swing, could be used here.

Individual Performance 2

A gymnast is experiencing fear when attempting a particular routine. They are told to visualise a  "happiness room" in their mind. This is to be a completely pleasant room, decorated to their taste, anything that makes them happy is to be placed in the room. They are to have a television in the room and to watch themself perform the routine to perfection on the television.Then they are given posthypnotic suggestions to relax and how easy it is, as they initiate the routine. Now in practice and in competitions they are told to visit the happiness room just prior to performing this routine, Where they can visualise themself perfoming the routine perfectly.

Many athletes have trouble getting to sleep, especially the night before an important competition. Suggestions can be used  to faciltate relaxation or sleep.

These are examples of how hypnosis can and has helped people in the past in their chosen sport. As mentioned previously, it is the mental attitude where hypnosis is most effective. It can be applied to specific situations in sport to reduce the feelings of pressure, anxeity and stress.

         PETERBOROUGH HYPNOTHERAPY CLINIC

               TELEPHONE: 01733 768839

            26 Priestgate Peterborough city Centre