Sport Hypnosis

The traits you need mentally, emotionally and physically for success you already possess within. With the assistance of hypnosis you can gain access to these abilities and experience the reality of your potential. You are capable of being the athlete you wish to be!

One of Hypnosis's main benefits over some other forms of Psychology is its ability in accessing unconscious behaviors rapidly.

It's often easy for an athlete to be aware of their 'problem' but solving it is another matter when they retain unconscious motivations to keep it alive.

Some of the ways Hypnosis can help are:

                  - Mental imagery and future rehearsal of success

                  - Focusing on success, strategy (how to get into the success zone when you need to)

                  - Overcoming mental blocks and barriers

                  - Reinforcing self-belief, motivation and positive thinking

         - Revisit a previous good performance and set up anchors to trigger that resourceful state again when required.

         - Good nutrition instillation

         - Increase strength: Weight lifting increase bench press by 30% through hypnosis.

          There has been a long history of hypnosis in sports, often used under different names such as mental or autogenic training. In the  1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Russian team took no less than 11 hypnotists. You don’t need to look too far in any sport to find great champions using hypnotic techniques to improve performance. The reason most of them don’t like to talk about it is because of the age-old myth that hypnosis is a magical power to make you do things. Athletes use all kinds of scientific technology to improve their performance including equipment, training advances, nutrition and even applied sports psychology, which will usually include focusing and visualization techniques for improvement.

Hypnosis is NOT

1. Sleep – There are four basic brain wave categories: Beta – Alpha – Theta – Delta. Each of these serves a different purpose for the mind and body.

Beta – This is the awake state

Alpha – Halfway between awake and sleep. This is the state you are in during hypnosis.

Theta – The state you are in when you are dreaming

Delta – Deepest part of sleep. This is where the body does the most healing and repairing.

2. A state of unconsciousness – When you are unconscious your brain is functioning in the Delta brain wave. Under hypnosis, many people describe having a heightened state of awareness, and a great control over bodily functions.
3. Being gullible or weak minded – It is a natural occurring state that everyone enters several times a day. Hypnosis is about one thing – following instructions. If you can follow instructions then you can be hypnotized.
4. Being controlled by someone else or a loss of self-control – Despite what Hollywood has tried to inspire, the science of hypnosis is really quite simple, very safe and easy to do. At no point will you lose control. At times people expect hypnosis to be a magical state where they float out of their body, lose track of senses, and have no conscious recollection of what happened. Instead, you remain very aware of your surroundings and can hear anything that goes on. The worst thing that could happen is you fall asleep and wake up feeling very refreshed!

Therefore Hypnosis is..

1.      An Awake State – Hypnosis requires the active participation of both conscious and unconscious processes. So you must remain awake for it to be considered hypnosis.  

The difference between the hypnotic state and the waking state is that the part of your brain called the critical faculty is missing. Both the conscious and unconscious mind are present. The critical faculty is the part of you that cares to distinguish between reality and fantasy. During hypnosis you know what is real and what is fantasy but you don’t care to define any difference. Much like watching a movie or reading a novel.

2.      A State of Relaxation – The critical faculty fades away in direct proportion to the level of relaxation the body and mind are experiencing. The deeper into relaxation you go, the further removed the critical faculty is. However, this does not mean you have to be in a deep state of hypnosis to accept the suggestions.

3.      All about following instructions – Many people believe that hypnosis has to do with intelligence, but in reality it has everything to do with following instructions.