Sports: High performance hypnosis
Sports: High performance hypnosis
February 23, 2020
in Health
6 min reading time

Sports: High performance hypnosis

Athletes leave nothing to chance, but mentally they can be left out. What would it be like if you were always in shape? You can with High Performance Hypnosis.

Hypnosis can be used to achieve the best performance you can, but how? There are a number of variations of hypnosis that you hardly hear about. Everyone knows about show hypnosis where people do separate things on stage. Then we also have the hypnotic therapy variety, which would also be good for healthcare when added. This form of hypnosis is also discussed a lot in the blogs of this website.

And then you have the aforementioned high performance hypnosis. This can be used to achieve the best performance of your life.

Hypnosis for elite sports

A lot of athletes leave nothing to chance. They eat right, they sleep right, they take their rest. I've heard of cyclists who literally just don't run their rest day. They stay on the couch (maybe lying down). They don't even grab the mail from the hall yet, because rest means rest and then you are not allowed to move.

These are really gigantically structured to the point of rigidity. They do everything, but the mental piece they often leave more to chance. They want to see how the day feels.

That's actually really crazy. Nutrition you are super mindful of. Exercise you're super conscious about and then you let your mental state depend on chance.

This is very strange, because what would it be like if you were always in shape?

You may be thinking that this can't happen because it has to do with all kinds of factors. That's right, you are affected by all kinds of factors.

Now imagine being unaffected by those factors.

For example, something really bad happens.

Something very bad is happening. Years ago we saw it during the 2008 European Championship with the Dutch national team when the little daughter of one of the players died . That is of great impact. What is more important, your little daughter or soccer? Well, of course you don't have to think about that for long. That's your little daughter. So it affects your bottom line. You could say you're a pro and you close yourself off to that. That's kind of easily said, but certainly not easily done and because of that you miss a few percent and because of that you can lose match and that happened during that time.

This is an extreme example. But what would it be like if factors like that no longer affected you? They can! You can always be in shape.

So it affects the bottom line. Shutting yourself off from that is easier said than done.

Because of that, you miss a few percent and because of that, you can lose matches and that happens in reality.

What would it be like if these kinds of factors (perhaps a little smaller than death) no longer had an effect on you?

You can! You can always be in shape.

You can still take advantage of this now because almost no athletes use it. If everyone is always in shape it becomes the same again, but because many athletes leave this out you still make a real difference.

With hypnosis, you can summon your ideal (emotional) state needed during competition. Just before the match you then get into the zone, you then summon that yourself.

I am now in the process of helping a few athletes who now apply this all the time. So they are always in shape, even during competitions. What would it be like for you if you were always in shape?

You can continuously summon that ideal state through hypnosis! Right before a game, for example. Bam, you get right into the zone. You can summon it, and you are no longer distracted in other areas. And that's when you're at your best. So you have a greater chance of taking the win.

However it is, he calls it and it happens.

As a result, he enters the fray while completely in the zone. That's when he is at his best.

Since the other athlete is unlikely to do this, he has an even greater chance of winning. Because that other athlete, he may be suffering from irritations at home, and you don't have that when you do high performance hypnosis.

This can really make a difference in your sport, your performance and whether or not you get on stage.

Also listen to this podcast.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/852960-hoe-kom-je-als-sporter-altijd-in-vorm-of-in-the-zone

High performance hypnosis

So in practice, I already see high performance hypnosis working for elite athletes, and science is also researching getting into the flow through hypnosis. Of course, you want to know that it doesn't "accidentally" work that one time.

This has been tested with golfers, among others, a sport in which you can make a lot of money if you are a top player at it.

For these golfers, they used relaxation exercises, guided visualizations, regression and controlling triggers.

The golfers in the study reported that hypnosis helped them feel more confident during the match. Entering the match with more relaxation and feeling more in control[1].

Hypnosis was also applied in a similar way to college basketball players, as is common in the U.S., to see if it helped them score more 3-pointers. This study found that not only was the average number of 3-pointers higher, their overall basketball game improved as a result of the hypnotic interventions. Like the golfers, the basketball players reported experiencing more confidence, relaxation and control while playing sports[2].

Watch this video about high performance hypnosis:

 

Regression for elite sports

Now you may be thinking, regression is more for therapeutic hypnosis, right? True, but athletes can also benefit from regression. In fact, regression can help you identify and eliminate triggers that take you out of flow.

If you do suffer from insecurity, and so that high performance hypnosis makes you more confident, this can be remedied with regression.

You may notice at times that something holds you back from really giving your all during a competition or training session. You've usually had this feeling before in your life. With regression, you go back to the first moment when you experienced this inhibiting feeling.

Then you start doing something with that moment. You look at it from different angles. You cause yourself to interpret the moment with new information, changing the information of the moment in your memory.

This alone can ensure that you no longer experience inhibitions when you want to go right for your goal.

Relaxation exercises with hypnosis

Inducing hypnosis often involves the use of relaxation exercises. These also help to evoke the state of flow, the ideal state during the match itself, just before the match.

For example, these are breathing exercises. You stand or sit somewhere, whichever suits you best, and take several deep breaths and relax your muscles.

You check each body part for unconsciously holding tension and then consciously relax those muscles.

Guided visualization

Part of the relaxation exercise may include a guided visualization that helps you relax even further.

Another way to use guided visualization is to imagine what you need to do to win. During that visualization, you are helped to imagine what will happen if everything goes right.

For example, how to always be free as a soccer player. How to properly kick the ball to your teammates. How it feels when you score that goal or, as a defender, take the ball away from your opponent's striker. How your body feels, what your thoughts are, even how the studs sink into the grass.

This also helps you catch and recognize that feeling of flow in the game.

Or did you know, for example, that Arnold Schwarzenegger visualized how his muscles grew so big that they would fill the entire gym (or room he was working out in)? That was how he used visualizations to get to the top of bodybuilding.

Controlling triggers

You also often see that many athletes are superstitious. For example, they have to make 3 crosses before they take the field.

Or if they are not wearing their special socks then it will be nothing at all.

Actually, these are triggers that either help them into the flow or out of the flow (if the trigger is missing).

With hypnosis, you can also figure out what triggers you to get into the flow. You can use special movements to anchor a feeling, allowing you to "trigger" the feeling by repeating that movement.

In addition, affirmations also help generate feelings of power and strength. You then repeat these while in a state of self-hypnosis. These can be affirmations such as:

"I am the best athlete in the world."

"I am stronger, faster and smarter than all my opponents."

"I am in the here and now."

"I see opportunities to take profits," he said.

These are just examples. Depending on your sport and beliefs, other affirmations may be chosen.

Want to know how hypnosis works and how to help athletes with hypnosis? Then take my free master class and I'll teach you how to put someone into hypnosis and also get them out of the hypnosis they call their problem.

Want to get started right away with techniques to help athletes, or other people, get the most out of their lives? Then enroll directly in one of the training courses of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands. The trainings are all given via livestream.

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.2000.91.3f.1057

[2] https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/tsp/16/1/article-p34.xml

About the author
Edwin Selij is owner and founder of Hypnose Instituut Nederland and provides training in Hypnosis. He is author of the books "You Don't Have It You Do It" and "Break Free!" and regularly appears on radio and TV to talk about hypnosis. He is the #1 Hypnosis Trainer in the Netherlands and has been giving hypnosis training for years. He was the first in the Netherlands to teach modern hypnotherapy via livestream.
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