The practice of sports has always been associated with great physical effort with constant training, but no less important to achieve optimal performance is the psychological component. Sports clubs, sports associations and sports federations are including in their services to athletes and players not only sports psychology, but also techniques such as mindfulness.
Mindfulness has aroused great interest in recent years, since it is being shown that it helps athletes show a better mental and psychological predisposition in sports practice. The use of a guide on how to get started in mindfulness is increasingly common among those who want to start in this field to improve their results.
Does mindfulness improve sports performance?
Sports psychology and mindfulness are essential to improve sports performance, interpersonal relationships within a team or even training. And it is that the physical state is fundamental in the sport, but what helps to achieve the objectives is a combination of physical, cognitive and affective conditions that can only be achieved by working on the body and the mind at the same time.
A correct combination of these variables allows you to achieve the highest possible performance in sport, reaching something very similar to what is known in mindfulness as a State of Flow. Mindfulness influences psychological variables such as stress, motivation or the level of activation in sport.
These variables are decisive in any athlete and have a significant impact on the results. They are variables that are related to each other and that can create a fatal combination for the athlete, even if on a physical level he is in a good moment. Mindfulness will influence these variables, exerting a positive influence, helping the athlete to achieve greater self-esteem and self-confidence, which translates into greater motivation in sport.
The athlete reaches a non-judgmental state with himself and with his results, which helps him to better interpret his successes and failures. It is something especially important in young athletes, when they have high expectations and have to learn to deal with themselves and with the weight that these expectations have on their results.
The State of Flow in sport
In addition to the practice of mindfulness being beneficial on a personal level, it is also beneficial for team cohesion or for improving interpersonal relationships in team sports. But on a personal level, it is where the best results are achieved until reaching that concept so widely used in mindfulness as the State of Flow.
This State of Flow can be translated as the mental state in which a person reaches a state of acceptance, ceasing to control and ruminate in his mind everything that affects him in a negative way . The athlete is able to observe what he feels without being affected by letting emotions and thoughts pass to increase his level of concentration in the sport.
The athlete does not invest his energies in worries, expectations or past results, but rather gives greater importance to the present time, to the current moment and to feeling good about himself in order to give the best of himself today.
Does mindfulness influence sports injuries?
On a mental and emotional level, one of the worst situations an athlete can go through is injury. During the injury and the recovery process, mindfulness has proven to be of great help in learning to better manage stress, in avoiding intrusive thoughts (never being the same again) or in avoiding negative feelings such as anger, sadness or the fear
All of this can have a negative impact on recovery from the injury, since psychological factors can influence poor adherence to treatment, a poor predisposition to rehabilitation sessions and frustration at not advancing at the desired pace. In the worst cases, they can even lead to abandonment of the sport at a professional level.
That is why mindfulness is so important when it comes to eliminating and controlling those negative thoughts, accepting the present moment and better managing the emotions that may occur during a sports injury.
In short, we can appreciate how mindfulness and sport go hand in hand to get athletes to control and manage the psychological factor so that it does not negatively affect their performance and to achieve greater motivation and self-confidence that will help them achieve maximum performance. .
