By Tom Graham-Marr & Eric Martin
(October 30, 2024)

The mental side of sport is where one can gain a competitive advantage, which has led to the integration of several key psychological techniques to help athletes realize their true potential. However, for many coaches, these methods are widely underutilized. Due to the underuse of these helpful tools, this article will highlight mindfulness, one tool that can support athletes in their quest to peak performance.

The Competitive Edge

Mindfulness is the ability to be fully conscious of the present moment’s feelings, thoughts, and surrounding environment (Keng et al., 2011). In sports, this may look like players employing mindfulness practices to stay focused on their performance at critical times of a game, keeping their cool under pressure, improving their concentration during practice, and swiftly recovering from mistakes by remaining present on the current task.

Mindfulness allows individuals to become more self-aware, feel calmer, and, above all, empowers athletes to choose how they react to challenging situations and manage their feelings and thoughts (Gardner & Moore, 2017). For sport, mindfulness can be a powerful resource for handling pressure, helping athletes manage negative thoughts, and enhancing athletes’ perceptions of their capabilities (Henriksen, 2022; Wang et al., 2023).

Why Mindfulness Influences Performance

There are numerous reasons why mindfulness positively influences performance, with many of them focused on how mindfulness improves psychological processes. For example: 

• Attention regulation: Mindfulness allows individuals to direct attention to the present moment which strengthens their awareness and focus. This, in turn, boosts athletes’ ability to focus on the right things at the right time and decreases the likelihood of them attending to distractions (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2006).
• Emotional regulation: Through the practice of mindfulness, athletes learn to recognize and accept their emotional experiences without judgment. This acceptance allows them to maintain composure, promoting emotional resilience and the development of adaptive coping strategies (Wang et al., 2023).
• Self-Reflection: Regular mindfulness practice enables athletes to deeply understand their own thoughts and behaviors. This heightened awareness of self helps them identify unhelpful thought patterns and modify them using other psychological skills (van Wietmarschen et al., 2018).
• Stress reduction: Mindfulness practices can reduce the physiological effects of stress by lowering blood pressure and cortisol levels. This reduction conserves energy and helps athletes maintain focus on essential information and performance cues (Chariton, 2016)
• Body awareness: Mindfulness can benefit an athlete’s awareness of their own bodily movements, patterns of breathing, and physical sensations, which can lead to an athlete being more attuned to their body during practices and competitions (Treves et al., 2019).
• Neuroplasticity: Mindfulness practice has been associated with increased grey matter density in brain regions essential for memory, learning, compassion, and introspection (Seaver, 2023).

How Mindfulness Can Benefit Various Sports

As we now understand how beneficial mindfulness can be for sport, the next stage is integrating these techniques into your coaching. Below are two practical strategies to encourage mindfulness with your athletes.

Mindful Breathing

Purpose: Increase bodily awareness, enhance focus, and regulate emotions.

To implement mindful breathing with athletes, introduce the concept and its benefits, emphasizing how it can help manage stress, enhance concentration, and improve overall performance. 

• First, start with a body scan exercise. To do this, have athletes lie down or sit comfortably, close their eyes, and take a few deep breaths to relax. Guide them through a mental scan of their body, moving from their head to their toes, allowing them to focus on each body part, noticing any tension or discomfort, but importantly, have them notice this without making any judgments. 
• Help athletes move through the progression a second time, but this time, as you move through each part of the body, encourage athletes to take an extra breath and, during this extra breath, to allow the tension they feel to leave their body. With each new exhale, have them visualize the tension dissipating from their body as they become increasingly relaxed. 
• After they have progressed through their entire body twice, have them shift to mindful breathing. During this time, they should feel the air entering and exiting their nostrils or have them notice the rise and fall of their chest. If their minds wander during this breathing, advise them to gently redirect their attention back to their breath without judgment. Practice this for 5 to 10 minutes, gradually increasing the duration as they grow more accustomed to it throughout their season. Integrate these mindful breathing sessions into training routines, using them before and after practice or during breaks to help athletes center themselves, prepare mentally for drills, or cool down after intense exercise.

Expected Outcomes: Athletes should notice reduced tension and increased relaxation, improved focus during training and competitions, and enhanced emotional regulation, leading to better performance under pressure.

Visualization

Purpose: Prime the mind for optimal performance, instil confidence, and enhance mental preparation

Visualization is another powerful component of mindfulness that can be implemented with your athletes. To introduce athletes to visualization, explain the concept and its benefits for enhancing sporting performance, noting that elite athletes often use visualization to prepare for competitions and refine their skills. For example, Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, credits visualization for helping him win the Olympic 200m gold in Butterfly. Within the first 50m of the race, Phelps’ goggles filled up with water, rendering him blind. However, he had visualized this exact scenario previously and because he had practiced this image, he could rely on his mental preparation to guide him to the finish (Dubai Eye 103.8 Sport, 2017).

• Begin a guided visualization session by finding a quiet, comfortable space where athletes can sit or lie down without distractions. Ask them to close their eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax. 
• Start the visualization by having athletes imagine a specific performance scenario, such as a competition, game, or race. Encourage them to create a vivid mental image of the scene, focusing on the environment, sounds, sensations, and movements involved. Guide them to visualize themselves performing at their best, concentrating on technique, speed, and precision, and have them imagine themselves experiencing positive emotions like confidence, joy, and satisfaction. To enhance the experience, instruct athletes to engage all their senses, imagining physical sensations (e.g., the feel of the ball or the grip of their shoes), sounds (e.g., such as crowd noise or teammates’ voices), and even smells associated with the setting (e.g., the smell of the gym or the pool where they train). This multi-sensory approach will make the visualization more vivid and effective. 
• Emphasize the importance of regular visualization practice, recommending short sessions daily or several times a week, particularly before practices and competitions, to strengthen mental rehearsal and boost performance.

Expected outcomes: These sessions will allow athletes to build self-awareness and begin to be more mindful in these experiences as well as during practices and competitions. Athletes will feel more confident and prepared for real-life performance situations, experience improved mental resilience and reduced anxiety before and during competitions, and perceive an enhanced ability to execute skills and strategies effectively under pressure.

Coaches should consistently practice mindfulness and visualization with their athletes to strengthen their positive effects and build the skills necessary to utilize mindfulness in high-pressure situations. These techniques can be completed before or after training sessions or in athletes’ own time, but the consistency of completing them is vital to ensure ongoing development and improvement. The types of sessions used should also be adaptable to ensure your athletes are receiving the correct strategies concerning their needs.

Closing Remarks

In conclusion, coaches need to recognize the immense value of mindfulness and actively incorporate it into their coaching toolkit. To neglect this powerful tool is to disadvantage both coaches and athletes alike. Embracing mindfulness allows athletes to reach new heights within their sport performance, develop resilience, and positively impact their overall mental well-being. Seizing the opportunity to reach this potential through fostering a culture of mindfulness creates excellence, both within and outside of an athlete’s sport.

References

Chariton, C. (2016, November 7). Mindfulness: Improving Sports Performance & Reducing Sport Anxiety. BelievePerform – the UK’s Leading Sports Psychology Website. https://members.believeperform.com/mindfulness-improving-sports-performance-reducing-sport-anxiety/

Dubai Eye 103.8 Sport. (2017, September 13). Michael Phelps on sacrifices, Usain Bolt and a possible Olympic return in 2020. Youtube; Dubai Eye 103.8 Sport. https://youtu.be/OelU90hH0QA?si=cXXnXEeZsFibDjuL

Gardner, F. L., & Moore, Z. E. (2017). Mindfulness-based and acceptance-based interventions in sport and performance contexts. Current Opinion in Psychology, 16, 180–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.06.001

Henriksen, K. (2022). The Magic of Mindfulness in Sport. Frontiers for Young Minds, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/frym.2022.683827

Keng, S. L., Smoski, M. J., & Robins, C. J. (2011). Effects of Mindfulness on Psychological health: a Review of Empirical Studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(6), 1041–1056. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2011.04.006

Seaver, M. (2023, August 9). What Mindfulness Does to Your Brain: The Science of Neuroplasticity. Real Simple. https://www.realsimple.com/health/mind-mood/mindfulness-improves-brain-health-neuroplasticity

Treves, I. N., Tello, L. Y., Davidson, R. J., & Goldberg, S. B. (2019). The relationship between mindfulness and objective measures of body awareness: A meta-analysis. Scientific Reports, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-53978-6

van Wietmarschen, H., Tjaden, B., van Vliet, M., Battjes-Fries, M., & Jong, M. (2018). Effects of mindfulness training on perceived stress, self-compassion, and self-reflection of primary care physicians: a mixed-methods study. BJGP Open, 2(4), bjgpopen18X101621. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgpopen18x101621

Wang, Y., Lei, S.-M., & Fan, J. (2023). Effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Promoting Athletic Performance and Related Factors among Athletes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trial. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(3), 2038. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032038

Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2006). Mindfulness and the Quality of Organizational Attention. Organization Science, 17(4), 514–524. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1060.0196