Sports Performance
To compete in any national or international competition, sports people need to be exceptional at their game or event. The consequence is that the physical skills of top athletes are virtually identical and the principal difference between winners and losers is mental focus. Hypnosis can be used to give a mental edge.
Creating focus
Before a sporting event, the mere thought of failing can be enough to trigger feelings of fear. This will cause the athlete to lose focus, and can lead to physical symptoms such as feeling weak at the knees, butterflies in the stomach, and blurred vision. Hypnosis can be used to focus the attention.
After an extended bout of bad luck, the athlete's consequent negative outlook can be changed through hypnosis. Confidence-building through ego-strengthening messages can be used to programme athletes with winning attitudes. Trigger words can be implanted as post-hypnotic suggestions, and when the athlete repeats them in competition they will provide a surge of energy and confidence.
Visual imagery
Visual imagery used to enhance a sporting performance can be either internal, when athletes feel as though they are inside their own bodies, or external, when they "watch" themselves from the outside.
Dr Kay Porter and Judy Foster, authors of the book ‘The Mental Athlete’, have suggested that visualising specific movements from the inside creates neural patterns of them in the brain, improving neuromuscular co-ordination. Since it is the brain that tells the muscles when and how to move, the stronger the patterns, the more perfect the movement is likely to be. In addition, if you run mental "films" of your own success, the subconscious mind becomes convinced that a desired feat is possible. A study in the US in the 1960s gave basketball players sessions with a hypnotist, in which they received suggestions for playing a better game and visualising themselves winning. When their shooting scores were compared with the scores of a comparable group of players who had not been exposed to hypnosis, they were found to be appreciably better.
Recovery from Injury
The Harvard Medical School conducted research on the use of hypnosis to enhance physical healing. Twelve people with a recent bone fracture were divided into two groups. One group received hypnosis and the other group served as control. Both groups received standard orthopedic treatment. The hypnosis group had individual hypnotic sessions and listened to audio tapes designed to increase bone healing. Xray and orthopedic evaluations were made during the 12 weeks of the experiment.
The results showed a faster healing for the hypnosis group at week 9 of the experiment. Xrays revealed a notable difference at the edge of the fracture at week 6 of the experiment. The hypnosis group also had better mobility and used less pain killers. The researchers conclude by saying that "despite a small sample size.... these data suggest that hypnosis may be capable of enhancing both anatomical and functional fracture healing, and that further investigation of hypnosis to accelerate healing is warranted."
The article was "Using hypnosis to accelerate the healing of bone fractures: a randomized controlled pilot study", by Ginandes, CS, Rosenthal, DI. Alternative Therapy Health Medicine, 1999, March, 5(2), pp.67-75.
For Hypnotherapy Birmingham sports improvement ring me on 0121 707 3588
I have worked with England Internationals, golfers, show jumpers and footballers. I am happy to work with any sports person amateur or professional.