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

Many athletes leave nothing to chance. They eat well, they sleep well, and they get their rest. I’ve even heard of cyclists who literally just don’t go for a run on their rest day. They stay on the couch (maybe even lying down). They don’t even go out to the entryway to get the mail, because rest means rest—and you’re not supposed 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 tragic is happening. Years ago, we saw this during the 2008 European Championship with the Dutch national team when one of the players’ young daughter passed away. That has a huge impact. What’s more important, your little girl or soccer? Well, of course, you don’t have to think about that for very long. It’s your little girl. So it affects your performance. You could say, “You’re a pro, so you have to shut that out.” That’s easy to say, but certainly not easy to do—and because of that, you lose a few percent of your performance, which can cause you to lose a game, and that’s exactly what happened back then.

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 are using it. If everyone were always in top shape, things would go back to the way they were, but since many athletes are missing out on this, you can really make a difference with it.

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.

Be sure to listen to this podcast as well.

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

High performance hypnosis

In practice, I’ve already seen that high-performance hypnosis works for elite athletes, and scientists are also conducting research into entering a “flow” state through hypnosis. Of course, you want to know whether it’s just a “coincidence” that it works 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, relaxation exercises, guided visualizations, regression, and trigger management were used.

The golfers in the study reported that hypnosis helped them feel more confident during the game, approach the game with greater relaxation, and feel more in control[1].

Hypnosis has also been used in a similar way with college basketball players—as is common in the U.S.—to see if it helped them score more 3-pointers. This study showed that not only was the average number of 3-pointers higher, but their overall basketball performance improved as a result of the hypnotic interventions. Just like the golfers, the basketball players reported experiencing greater confidence, relaxation, and control while playing[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 struggle with insecurity—and high-performance hypnosis has helped you become more confident—this can be addressed through 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.

Would you like to get started right away with techniques to help athletes—or others—get the most out of their lives? Then sign up today for one of the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands. All courses are taught 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