Suresh Devrao Ingale
Associate Professor & Director of Physical Education and Sports
MVP Samaj’s Arts and Commerce College, Taharabad
Tal- Baglan, Dist. Nashik
Abstract:
Being physically strong is not the only thing that makes an athlete great. Mental strength plays an equally important role. It helps athletes to cope with a tough training schedule, stay focused during races and avoid being mentally affected by competition. Building and maintaining that resilience is just one of the benefits of meditation for athletes.
Athlete’s biggest opponent is always inside. It’s always our fears & doubts that we need to overcome and setbacks & hardships that we need to triumph over. Staying mentally strong through these challenging moments is what shapes an athlete. And those who practice meditation are able to navigate those moments better.
The world of professional sport is a highly competitive and extremely demanding environment requiring a lot of discipline and dedication. As Paul Bear Bryant rightly said, what matters the most is the will and preparation that goes into playing a match. Athletes are under pressure to perform at the highest level and this increases the risk of physical and mental burnout - this is where the ancient Indian practices of pranayama and meditation could be very helpful. These practices have been shown to have numerous benefits for professional athletes, both on and off the field.
Keywords: Pranaytam, meditation, mental strength, stress
It’s not the will to win that matters, everyone has that.
It’s the will to prepare to win that matters - Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.
Introduction:
Athletes work and train hard for long hours, often pushing their bodies to its limit. Workouts force our bodies to respond, adapt, and improve. The greater the intensity of the exercise, the more stress it generates, and the more our bodies change for the better. However, many people forget that the stress from strenuous exercise isn’t only physical — it’s also mental. Mental stress depletes athletes of their drive and their focus, ultimately leading to low satisfaction and poor overall performance, thus defeating the purpose of training in the first place. One way to reduce mental stress and exhaustion (while also improving overall physical performance) is through sports meditation and mental training for athletes. In fact, any sportsperson - especially those at the peak of their trade - will readily agree that the bad days far outweigh the good ones. But it is the grind through those rough patches that makes the reward at the end of the struggle satisfying.
Athletes constantly look for any edge they can get over their contemporaries. At the elite level, the skill sets of athletes are almost on par if not equal. What separates the best from the rest is their temperament (better known as mental conditioning) and their willingness to come out of form slumps and the not so good times through sheer determination and the constant drive that defines champions.
What counts as meditation?
Before we delve into what it can do for us, let’s see what meditation actually is. When we hear the word meditation, many of us immediately conjure up an image of a monk, sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, oblivious to the world. There are many ways to meditate and you certainly don’t have to become a monk to experience some profound positive changes! Meditation essentially means focusing the mind on the breath, a particular subject, body area or a mental image, whilst trying to not let anything disturb you. You can also focus on a word or a phrase that helps you sustain your attention. Another stage is to ‘clear your mind’ – in other words focus on nothing in particular. You can do this sitting in any position that’s comfortable for you but sitting with the back upright is best for focus. The key principle of meditation is choosing the focal point of your attention and not letting your mind be dragged around by random thoughts.
In meditation, thoughts always come and get in the way. It happens to absolutely everyone. Whenever a thought pops up, label it as ‘thinking’ and send it away. The point is not to engage with the thoughts. Simply acknowledge them but don’t give them any energy or attention. Sitting like that, training your mind not to stray, being aware and focused, that’s meditation.
Most of the time, your mind frets about so all you’re doing is trying to pacify it, again and again. It may be difficult but even if that’s all you do for 10 minutes, you’ll notice you feel different afterwards. Some people say they get their best ideas or solutions to a problem whilst meditating – that’s not why we meditate but it can happen. If it does, do a little internal whoop but don’t dwell on it and carry on meditating. You may be surprised what your brain comes up with!
Why is meditation good for athletes?
Any form of exercise or physical activity is a form of stress which requires our bodies to respond and get accustomed to, especially when the intensity of the activity is higher than what the body usually experiences. And this is what athletes undergo regularly in their aim for constant improvement. These intense exercises not only lead to stress on the body, but also on the mind. The greater the intensity of exercise, the higher the level of stress on body and mind.
Studies indicate that assiduous fitness regimens that are part and parcel of the lifestyles of professional athletes require constant attention and a stern focus on continuing to exercise even when the body might think that it is more pleasant to stop, which results in increased stress. Athletes, who are on a perpetual growth curve, constantly push through physical barriers of pain, which results in not only recurring doses of stress on the body, but also on the mind, that has to cope with the ever-increasing demand placed on it to perform.
The levels of stress that a modern-day elite athlete experience is unprecedented, as it not only involves the athlete’s own expectations of themselves, but also that of his teammates, and needless to say, the expectations of the supporters! An athlete has to address all this and then perform to win the day. These studies conducted the world over highlight how regular meditation leads to reduced stress and brings about a profound positive impact. Data from these researches further highlight how meditation helps alleviate emotional and cognitive strains that occur during physical training. While these studies help engender the ameliorations in brain activity through meditation, many athletes themselves have alluded to the benefits of regular meditation for athletes in their careers.
Can meditation improve sports performance?
Recently, Kumar Sangakarra, former captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team, in an interaction with Ravichandran Ashwin (current Indian cricketer), shared his experience of undergoing the Art of Living workshop. He said that one of the things that stuck with him during the program was ‘to be happy now’, which automatically puts you in a frame of mind that helps you give your best to any given moment.
Just this simple practice brings your mind completely to the present which is immensely helpful as it becomes easier to focus on the next immediate event in the game rather than dwelling on what has already transpired – whether good or bad. Especially in sports that are played in moments - such as baseball, tennis, golf, cricket, etc – the attention span required of athletes are in independent instants, as compared to those that partake in other sports such as football or hockey, that have a continuous flow of play.
Just knowing that you have to give your 100% to that moment relieves you from all the other insignificant goings-on in the mind. Regular practice of meditation has been proved to help athletes focus better and also increase game awareness when concentration has to be at its best. We have often seen this in sport, when athletes have put in tremendous performances when their team is in a hopeless situation knowing that they have nothing to lose and lifting their teams to clinch unbelievable victories!
Defining Sports Meditation
Sports meditation is a form of mindfulness and mental training that is aimed specifically at helping athletes and active individuals with performance in mind. Sports meditation is a simple yet effective way to help athletes be more mindful, increase their focus, reduce stress, and improve their mind-body connection. Meditation has been practiced for centuries and in several different cultures. Today, meditation is considered a form of complementary medicine that focuses on the mind and body to achieve mental fitness.
Practicing meditation allows us to turn our attention inwards and focus on our thoughts and mental headspace. It offers us a chance to work through jumbled thoughts and eliminate what’s taking space in our minds and causing stress. Moreover, it helps us increase our self-awareness, manage sources of anxiety, and reduce negative emotions. In recent years, exciting new possibilities have emerged from the intermingling of meditation with modern technology. The immersive qualities of virtual reality, for example, have amplified the effectiveness of meditation sessions for users, while additional neurofeedback technology is revealing new ways to treat meditation like training.
How Sports Meditation Helps Athletes
As mental health draws further into the focus of society at large, more and more athletes are realizing how the benefits of consistent meditation can apply to them. Meditation helps users achieve greater focus, states of relaxation, an inner sense of calm, and more attuned mindfulness. Meditating before or after a workout, for example, can contribute to a stronger sense of focus and drive, or even help the post-workout recovery period. Researchers noted that practicing mindfulness meditation and training the mind may help mitigate or reduce the negative effects of taxing workouts and training on their emotions and way of thinking. Another study found that short bouts of meditation after grueling training sessions offer large benefits for athletes. Over four weeks, athletes who took part in 12-minute mindfulness meditation sessions after their training showed better mental resilience, attention or focus, and mood levels. Relaxation-focused meditation, during which participants mainly listened to calming music and systematically relaxed their muscles, is also beneficial. The study showed it helped athletes be less likely to have declining moods.
Meditation for sports anxiety
Energetic body, calm mind.
Athletes, when they are at their peak fitness, while feeling energetic and enthusiastic at the level of the body, also experience a constant stream of thoughts at the level of the mind. Practices like Pranayama have a profound impact on our body and mind; it energises the body and calms the mind - which is a very unique combination. This calmness of mind brings about a beta state of awareness and focus that athletes often call ‘the zone’, which enables them to achieve almost superhuman feats! Such athletes are calm and relaxed in the midst of a tense game situation and can respond better to those circumstances. That is why we feel certain sportsmen are better in high pressure moments as they are calmer in such times and their game awareness increases to bring out the best in them.
An average human being utilizes only 30% of their lung capacity. Regular practice of Pranayamas such as Bhastrika and other techniques expand the lung capacity, which results in higher output per breath – directly linked to increased fitness. This also helps increase focus and reduces the heart rate, symbolic of a relaxed mind rather than one that is prone to a more slapdash approach to a situation.
The Different Brain States Helped by Meditation
Did you know you have different brain or mental states?
Brain states play a key role in determining our level of focus on our tasks or activities. One of the ways we can categorize these brain states is by looking at our brainwaves. Brainwaves are the result of the neurons in our brain communicating and producing small electrical currents. There are five different brainwaves, which in turn affect our state of consciousness. Three relevant brainwave states for athletes are the alpha, beta, and theta states. Increasing both the alpha and theta brainwave activity introduces our brain into a new, yet similar state: the flow state.
What is the Flow State?
The flow state of mind describes a mental state where we are completely focused on one task or activity. All our attention goes into what we are currently doing. In layman’s terms, this is described as being “in the zone”, and while it may seem like a myth, we’re here to tell you it’s very real! The ability to intensely focus alone makes the flow state important for athletes who need to focus on their training; however, research shows that those are not the only potential benefits of the flow state for athletes. According to a study by Frontiers in Psychology, our brain exhibits greater theta and alpha activities when in the flow state. This means athletes in the flow can potentially reap the benefits of both alpha and theta brainwave states.
The beta state occurs when our brain is strongly engaged in mental activities, deeply focused on a task, learning something new, or solving a problem.
The alpha state helps lower our anxiety and chronic pain, increase our athletic performance, boost motivation and energy, and expand our mental clarity.
The Theta State Meanwhile, being in the theta state helps reduce mental fatigue and improve physical healing.
Conclusion:
Yogic techniques like Yoga Nidra, where individuals take their attention to different parts of the body while taking deep breaths, lead to relaxation of muscles in those specific body parts, making them more supple and loose, which leads to optimal output. Athletes often speak about muscle memory that is developed by repeating the same motion over and over again during training sessions – be it going for that 3 pointer in basketball, hitting the cross court backhand winner in tennis or that hook shot for half a dozen of a pace bowler. Athletes who regularly meditate, experience a calm and clear state of mind and are able to fall back to this muscle memory, honed over 1000’s of hours of practice, and let their instincts take over, without being inhibited by the trains of thought that the mind usually gets into. Athletes who meditate everyday are better equipped to withstand the mental demands that professional sport entails, while also acuminating their mental faculties to make the best of their abilities. The practice of meditation is a journey similar to any other athletic quest, and it could stack the odds of success in your favour and help you achieve your dreams while also making you happier in the process.
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