Serious athletes are often determined to find anything that will give them an edge over their competition, as well as help them perform optimally. Hypnosis and imagery have been utilized by many such athletes to improve their game.
While some regard hypnosis as some mystical or magical form of mind control, it is actually a legitimate form of treatment which has proven to be effective in bringing about positive change,developing new habits and behaviors, and releasing unhealthy or unproductive emotions, habits and behaviors. Many well-known athletes have worked with highly trained hypnotherapists to achieve significant gains in their personal performance, regardless of their sport.
Since the unconscious mind is really the driving force between most of our beliefs and behaviors, it makes sense that a technique which elicits change at the unconscious level can be highly effective. Hypnosis is such a technique.
Hypnosis can help an athlete overcome issues of self-doubt which may be keeping him from moving to the next level. It can help an athlete hone his skills, fine-tune a technique, and have a level of self-belief and confidence which will enable him to excel beyond what he may have previously thought possible.
Hypnosis can also help an athlete acquire the intense focus required to be at the top in his sport. Hypnosis can help an athlete overcome performance anxiety or pre-game jitters which can make the difference between winning a gold medal and coming in 6th place.
Tiger Woods is an excellent example of an incredible athlete who has used hypnosis to achieve a phenomenal level of success in golf. He has reportedly been utilizing powerful self-hypnosis techniques since his early teens. Not only has he used it to visualize every swing and stroke in his mind before carefully executing it on the course, he also uses it to “get in the zone”.
Self-hypnosis methods have helped him, like many successful athletes, quiet his mind, release any anxiety, and become 100% focused as he plays the game. Such laser focus can be especially important in a game like golf where onlookers and other things can be very distracting. Tiger Woods has clearly shown how powerful hypnosis can be to conquer his mind and achieve extremely high levels of success.
As Tiger Woods can attest, imagery (or visualization) is an effective self-hypnosis technique which can help athletes perform better. A gymnast may visualize herself going through every movement of her routine over and over in her mind. A basketball player may visualize himself making a perfect free throw shot hundreds of times. By using imagery or visualization, these athletes are conditioning their minds and their bodies to carry out the movements in reality just as they have performed them hundreds of times in their minds. Mary Lou Retton reported used visualization to help win the gold medal in gymnastics at the 1984 Olympics.
Athletes will often use imagery and visualization just before their event to achieve their desired goal. By closing their eyes and focusing on achieving their goal, they can improve their performance. Once they have pictured it in their mind they then proceed to do it. Utilizing this technique is especially beneficial when the sport requires a brief burst of energy.
Another way that hypnosis can help competitive athletes is in dealing with pain and injuries. Learning to dissociate from the pain can help them better cope with it and perform in spite of it. Relaxation methods can also be particularly helpful when it comes to managing pain which is a part of most sports. Hypnosis can also help athletes recover more quickly from a sports injury. By accelerating the recovery time the athlete can return to practice and competition more quickly, which can be very important for athletes competing at the highest levels.
Even if you are not training for the Olympics or competing as a professional athlete, hypnosis can help you attain higher levels of performance in whatever sport you play. You can work with a hypnotherapist, listen to hypnosis CDs or learn various self-hypnosis techniques such as those mentioned earlier. You may find your performance improving much more than you thought possible.
Abouthypnosis.com
Hypnosis enhances immune system, reduces stress supporting healthy skin. [info]
During my hypnosis training I learned how hypnosis can alter blood flow, enhance immune response, and significantly reduce stress. I use this approach to help clients make warts disappear.
Even though I understood the theory there was a part of me that was thinking, ‘no way.’ Well I had the opportunity to test the process very early in my career as a hypnotist. The client was the 12 year old son of a major sports personality in Boston so needless to say I was a little nervous.
When the client and his mother showed up for the second of 3 three sessions she proudly held up the boy’s hand to show that the warts were drying up. A month after we concluded the last session she emailed to say the warts were completely gone.
On the surface it seems quite bizarre how words can effect physical change but it really makes perfect sense. By accessing the subconscious mind with hypnosis we connect to the body’s control center that regulates the thousands of metabolic functions which automatically occur everyday.
So with hypnosis we give the subconscious a nudge in the direction of making warts disappear and with repetition the body does what it is told. By listening to their sessions daily for about a month clients experience the results they want.
By: Paul Gustafson RN CH
Chronic lack of sleep poses a lot of known debilitating effects such as fatigue, lack of clear judgment and decision making, inability to focus, slowed response, mood changes, irritability and reduced energy levels. Little did people know that with sleep imbalance, a lot more disruptions in body processes happen inside the body.
Latest researches look into other serious effects of lack of sleep. The UCLA research team released a report which says that losing sleep even for a night may cause abnormalities in cellular pathways which induces tissue damaging inflammation reactions. On the other hand, a good sleep can decrease the risk of heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
Inside our body, there is this substance which main task is to signal inflammatory processes – the nuclear factor (NF)-κB. It was observed that after subjects were deprived of sleep for just one night, the day after, activation of (NF)-κB signaling was significantly greater as compared to the baseline measurements. Interestingly, this increase was only seen among female subjects.
This finding, according to the team may strengthen the link between sleep disturbance and the wide array of medical conditions such cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, certain cancers, and obesity. Dr. John H. Krystal says, “the closer that we look at sleep, the more that we learn about the benefits of sleeping.”
Accordingly, another research by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston looked into the relationship of sleep imbalance and cardiovascular risks. Dr. Najib Ayas says, “sleep is probably one of the pillars to a healthy lifestyle. Too little sleep puts stress on the body.” This was after they found out that women who have been sleeping less and more than the usual sleeping hours had increased risk of developing heart disease.
Undeniably, the length of sleep really does matter. There is 45% risk of having heart problems among women sleeping 5 hours of less. Those who slept six hours only had 18% increased risk while those who slept for seven hours only had 9% risk.
If less is bad, then adding more to these hours might make it good. However, people should not add too much to their sleeping hours. This can be supported by the finding that women who slept nine hours have 38% increased risk for developing heart problems as compared to women who slept for 8 hours.
The possible rationale behind these data is the increase in cortisol, a hormone which is secreted during any stressful situation (physical, emotional, physiological, etc.) This has long been associated with the increase in blood pressure. On the other hand, increased risk among those with longer hours of sleep is probably associated with depression, sleep apnea and chronic pulmonary disease.
These figures have become more relevant as results of the Sleep in America poll by the National Sleep Foundation show an increasing incidence of people who have less sleep. The trend shows that fewer adults are getting 8 hours of sleep. Average sleep of women is 7 hours as compared to men with 6.7 hours per night.
Women are said to be more likely to report symptoms of insomnia (63% as compared to men with 54%.) More women also report frequent daytime sleepiness (20% vs. 13% for men.) Furthermore, more than one quarter of women even said that they need to get more sleep so that they can be totally alert the following day.
All these data then encourage patients to discuss with their doctors their sleep hygiene: quantity and quality of sleep, daytime sleepiness, snoring, pauses in breathing, leg movements or other disruptions during the night – all of which can affect their current and future overall state of health.
By: Gerrard Mackenzie
I see many individuals who are paralyzed with irrational fear over day-to-day activities like riding an escalator, flying, driving, speaking, or even making direct eye contact with others. Some know when and how the fear originated but most don’t have a clue. With hypnosis we really don’t even need to know.
It is very frustrating for these individuals because intellectually they know how ridiculous their response is and how it defies logic but they feel powerless to change. What makes it even worse is that over time, with repetition, the roots of the problem grow long and strong, making it nearly impossible to establish lasting relief.
I recently sat with a client terrified of heights, any height at all. She got nervous just climbing a flight of stairs and would refuse to even try unless there was a railing on both sides. The problem was significantly affecting the quality her life.
Hypnosis offered a unique way to ‘pretend’ she didn’t have the fear, to imagine what it would be like. The advantage to doing this while in hypnosis is that the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between what we think about and what we experience in real life. So we were able to insert new preferred ground rules with how she viewed height. Then she listened to the program at home for a couple of weeks…problem solved.
By: Paul Gustafson RN CH
