The Mind-Body Connection of Enhancing Sports Performance with Hypnosis

Athletes of all levels usually look for new ways to enhance their sports performance and accuracy. I’m a powerlifter, rower, and swimmer, and I love all of those sports, but lifting can psych me out sometimes, and rowing a race can be equally challenging. We get nervous or anxious, we overthink or underthink, and then our performance might not be what we wanted. 

I love working with athletes because we are aware of our body-mind connection and the way our bodies move through space. Harnessing that awareness helps us focus, brush off jitters, and learn to reinforce positive behaviors, which is a pretty simple process. 

When we practice, our brain can’t tell the difference between a ‘good’ practice and a ‘bad’ one, it just sees all practice as practice. So we need to consciously make an effort to ‘save’ the good sessions more strongly and let the poor sessions go. This helps us to enhance our muscle memory, create positive habits and reinforce our own power, strength and focus.

​You might think of hypnosis for stress, PTSD, anxiety or quitting smoking, but we can use it for many different intentions. Sports performance is one of my favorites - because the results are usually instant! And measurable. 

Hypnosis can:

• Supply motivating instructions

• Enhance sensory awareness and muscle control 

• Boost confidence

• Increase concentration, control internal dialogue, and decrease awareness of unimportant external stimuli

• Remove or lessen fears

• Control anger, anxiety, and demotionality

• Enhance motivation and enthusiasm

• Increase energy, feelings of invigoration, and endurance  

• Increase self-esteem, confidence, and self-efficacy 

• Resolution of unconscious blocks or conflicts 

• Manage discomfort, anxiety, fear, pain ​

Hypnosis cannot:

• Do everything for you - it isn’t the panacea of treatments, it’s just a tool

• Work if incorrectly or inefficiently applied

• Turn you into a star athlete in a new sport, or change your PR’s if you aren’t actually trained, it can only enhance what you already have, not turn you superhuman. 

• Coaches and parents with a vested interest in the outcome of a sport, performance, race, competition, etc, should not be the ones to apply this protocol. 

• It needs to be a self-guided or more deeply guided process by a neutral, trained professional. 

Click the link below to access my free Hypnosis for Powerlifting & Weightlifting Performance and Focus track! It’s a 15-minute process to help you hone in on your focus, create a habit to anchor in your good sessions and set you up for good sessions in the gym. You’re welcome to use this track for other sports as well you just might need to be created in your mind’s eye with the visualizations. 

Access the Free Hypnosis for Lifters Recording here!

And as always, if you’re looking for customized support, I’m here to help! We offer in-person acupuncture and hypnotherapy visits in Oakland, California, and online visits worldwide for hypnotherapy. Click the link below to schedule your time now! ​

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