Imagine: You are the kicker walking onto the freezing field with a chance to hit the game-winning field goal. Eighty thousand spectators are watching in the stands and millions more are huddled around their TV sets. Two seconds remain on the game clock. If you hit, you're a hero. If you miss, you're a failure... here's the snap!
Whether or not you’re a fan, you can’t help but wince when observing the pressure experienced in professional sports. Why do some pro-athletes, such as Tom Brady and Tiger Woods, perform so well under pressure while other athletes buckle? Beyond talent, practice, and teammork comes one’s mental conditioning. I always tell my yoga students that years of experience, a finely tuned physique, and the perfect scoring opportunity are all for naught without a highly trained mind at the helm.
The key is to “practice silencing the mind just where it is seemingly the most difficult: on the street, in the subway, at work, everywhere.”* Before the 2006 World Cup, the Italian soccer team embraced the value of neurofeedback to “silence the mind.” Neurofeedback primarily helps athletes “reprogram their brains so they can reach a zone of relaxed concentration during clutch situations.” The Italian team spent chunks of practice time wired to machines measuring how they responded to stress.
The machines showed the soccer stars how they became distracted or had trouble winding up to the moment. The Italians subsequently spent weeks using their brain as a joystick in computerized games helping them focus and remain calm amidst pressure.** In the World Cup, amidst the pressure of several penalty kick shootouts, the Italians evaded any gaffes, chokes or buckles.
If you’re not about to leave the gym for some neurofeedback, take note of what 3-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady does for mental conditioning: YOGA. As he himself says, “Yoga is great for flexibility, it's therapeutic, and great for your attitude. And it gets you some silence during your day.”
Here are some tips on strengthening the mind so you don’t “bobble the snaps and fumble the handoffs” that life throws your way:
- Look Within -- Part of being mentally strong involves a daily practice of reflection. Learning to look within protects you from others’ expectations. You never see the best athletes question their own ability because they have their own definition of what it means to be “able.”
“One of the things that my parents have taught me is never listen to other people’s expectations. You should live your own life and live up to your own expectations, and those are the only things I really care about it.” – Tiger Woods - Own the Moment -- Part of success amidst pressure is cultivating the ability to stay totally present. Bad things happen to everyone but only the champion athletes are able to forget when they need to forget.
“You can’t live in the past. There’s nothing you can do about it.” – Martina Navratilova - Strength Through Surrender -- The application of ancient Eastern techniques to enhance mental focus began with the Soviet space program in the 1950’s.
"The Russians learned how to gain access to these high levels of human energy not through a get-tough posture of tight-jawed determination, but through the practice of rather subtle methods of breath control, mental concentration, and mind-body unification, which they learned by mastering ancient meditation techniques.” ***
Sources:
*Satprem, Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness
** “Goal, Neurofeedback Scores a Victory,” Wall Street Journal, 7/29/06
*** Dr. Charles Garfield, Peak Performances
