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How Top Athletes Use Sports Hypnosis

Many of us participate in sports or athletic competitions and, whether it’s just for fun or at a professional level, we all like to do our best and achieve our full potential. Many athletes spend hours training themselves physically and preparing the body to do its best. What many of them forget is that the body is just half the story – it’s inextricably linked to and controlled by the mind. If the mind doesn’t perform at its best, the body won’t either.

Sports Hypnosis is a tool used by many athletes, although it is not widely spoken about. Lately though, more and more athletes are revealing how important their mental preparation is to their success.

There are a number of ways that Sports Hypnotherapy can help athletes.

Motivation – everyone has those little slumps and setbacks when practising seems like a chore. Hypnotherapy helps boost motivation and uncover any underlying issues holding us back. It can create resources to call on when we need a little extra in the tank to achieve our goals.

Concentration and focus – sporting performance can be seriously damaged by lapses of concentration. A runner’s poor start might lose them the race or a brief lapse for a cyclist can result in a fall. In endurance based and single pursuit sports such as tennis, a ‘lapse of concentration’ is often blamed for unforced errors or misses. Once we have trained our body, our mind needs to focus and recall its instructions clearly and accurately.

Pressure and fear – the amount of pressure put on athletes nowadays, from school right up to the Olympics, can be shocking. This isn’t always a positive thing and dealing with this pressure can be a struggle. Battling anxiety, worries or fear can be tiring for the mind and body and prevent an athlete from performing at their best. Hypnotherapy helps athletes calm and process these pressures in a useful way, harnessing them for motivation rather than fear.

Self-belief – although you wouldn’t always guess it, many athletes struggle with confidence and self-belief – even the most successful ones. Hypnotherapy is uniquely placed to alter our unconscious beliefs and empower us. Improving confidence and self-belief can drastically improve sporting performance.

Self-sabotage – sometimes we can be our own worst enemy and negative thoughts, fears or limiting beliefs may prevent us from reaching our potential. Hypnotherapy can address and relieve these issues, getting to the underlying cause of any performance issues quickly and effectively.

Overcome mental blocks – many of us suffer with mental blocks in our lives and career and it can be difficult to understand what has caused them or how to move on. Hypnotherapy is one of the few treatments that can directly access the subconscious and alleviate these symptoms. It gives you the power to free yourself from these setbacks.

The Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, Olympian Mary Lou Retton, Tiger Woods and boxer Kevin McBride are all known to use sports hypnosis to succeed.

Next Steps

Unlocking the power of your mind might just be the difference you need between you and your closest competitors – that extra edge you’ve been looking for to unlock your full potential. If you’d like to find out more about how I could help you improve your performance, please do get in touch.

Alix Needham

My techniques guarantee that you remain in control at every session. These techniques, developed over 25 years, are so effective that many issues can be addressed in as little as three sessions and my location in the very heart of London means you can book sessions to work around work.

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