How Can Meditation Help Athletes?

Meditation is a technique that can be very useful in the mental preparation of athletes or people who exercise regularly.

At this point of the story we can consider that the benefits that meditation has for the wellbeing of a person are very clear. This millenary technique allows to find a physical, mental and spiritual balance becoming a basic element to eliminate stress, anxiety or the worries of the daily life, favoring the inner peace.

Meditation is also a key component of one of the most popular techniques in modern society, mindfulness, keeping focused on the present and on what we are doing every minute. So, we could say that meditation has always been present but one of its benefits has gone unnoticed by most people.

Until now. And the fact is that meditation is a technique that can be very useful in the mental preparation of athletes or people who exercise regularly.

Among other aspects it improves concentration and can even raise the athlete’s performance. Thus, some studies suggest that the regular practice of meditation for several months ends up generating a change in the brain’s process to focus attention, memory or perception.

Although it may sound strange to us, and we do not see many places where meditation is applied as a support method for sports performance, meditation can help athletes and there are many international elite athletes who have taken advantage of the benefits of meditation to make a qualitative leap in their results and those of their teams. Fraser, Jordan or Bryant are some of the names of these athletes who use meditation as a tool to improve performance and calm the mind.

One of the main defenders of the presence of this technique in training and locker rooms has been Phil Jackson, legendary NBA coach, who has used meditation for years with his players.

The advantages that meditation can have for an athlete go beyond physical activity and become part of their daily life. Here are some of the benefits why it is good to consider incorporating meditation as a parto of our sports routine.

Meditation can help Athletes: Concentration

With meditation you train the focus of attention on a specific factor, something very necessary in sports. Training the mind helps to keep the brain focused on the activity. In CrossFit you will be able to concentrate on technique, have a better strategy and a better rep count, without getting distracted. But whatever your sport, you will be more focused during its practice.

Say goodbye to fear

Fear is an integral part of sport – losing, getting injured, failing – so much so that it can cause mistakes by blocking us. Meditation calms the amygdala, the area where fears are generated. And it is certainly that extra push that many of us need to remove the limitations o our heads.

Meditation is the perfect tool to prepare us for the moments when we do not achieve good results. It helps to overcome failure and clears the mind to look for possible solutions to problems. With success it also helps us to know how to handle it. It will also help us to make an exercise of studying and detecting our weak points and to learn how to improve them.

Stronger and healthier

Meditating daily helps strengthen the immune system and reduces the risk of illness and injury. In addition, this mental practice helps with cognitive health, decision making and mental clarity, aspects that can deteriorate with age.

Meditation can help Athletes: Stable emotions

Meditation is responsible for stabilizing the emotions of athletes and helps them to take control of their moods, vital when competing. Always being under pressure causes stress to arise. It is uncontrollable but can be reduced by meditating for a few minutes before the big event that produces this feeling.

Relaxation and meditation make us find our weaknesses and we can work on them to improve them. Along the same lines, visualization is another tool with the best results for athletes during meditation, a training beyond the physical. For example, imagining a new snatch PR or the trajectory of the bar in a heavy jerk.

Sleep performance

One of the first things that are affected in our lives when we have too much stress is sleep. When we don’t get proper rest, we don’t perform as we should during our workouts. Lack of sleep can reduce our level of focus and accuracy and can lead to injury.

Rest is very important for athletes, so that they can perform properly and not be distracted from their goals. Meditation helps to slow down the mind and improves the quality of sleep.

Sport definitely requires that the whole organism is in function of the corresponding task and the mind plays a valuable role, since it not only makes it possible to focus attention on what is being done, but also plays a leading role in the processing of emotions. In this way, the intense practice will have the expected effect at the moment of the event or competition, since an athlete dominated by anxiety may not reflect all the previous preparation and, on the contrary, the result will feed the anxiety for future occasions, becoming like a snowball, a bigger and more difficult to control feeling.

person does morning meditation by the beach

So if we have convinced you and you think that meditation fits you and your training routine, there are several options to start practicing it. Disciplines such as yoga work on flexibility and muscles through concentration and breathing.

It is a good way to get started. When you go on your own, in addition to wearing comfortable clothes, think about choosing a pleasant environment free of interruptions or loud and abrupt noises. When meditating, breathing is your best ally.

Put all your attention on it. Repeating a word or short phrase – a mantra – with each breath helps to override other thoughts in your mind. As you get more practice, you will see that there are a multitude of meditation techniques you can use to boost your athletic performance.

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