Introduction

Every sports person dreams of improving their golf swing, having a better backhand on the tennis court or beating a personal best time during a run. Training and practice can achieve this, but hypnotherapy can also be used to help people reach their goals and make them better at their chosen sport.

Hypnosis can help athletes develop correct techniques, build their concentration, their confidence, and increase their will-power, which essential for maximum performance. The characteristics of hypnosis, such as relaxation, focus and so on, enable it to make a major impact in developing mental training skills for athletes.

As sports hypnosis deals with the mind and not the actual physical techniques of the sport it is not used to replace the job of the coach. Where appropriate, we can work together with a coach or instructor to do a joint assessment of how any problems someone is experiencing are affecting their sport. For example, in football, taking a free kick, the coach will have passed on the correct techniques for this, and the sports hypnotherapist develops the focus and confidence within the player.

It may be that problems come from difficulties in other areas of our client’s life and they are bringing it into their sport. If so, it is important that we identify this and address this also. What we do know is that hypnotherapy can profoundly increase our inner beliefs and, in sport, belief is everything.

Areas where Hypnosis can help in sports include:

· Anxiety issues. (Enabling the athlete to remain calm under pressure)
· Performance anxiety e.g. 'freezing' at competitions, stage fright.
· Loss of confidence. (Improve the athlete's attitude and motivation)
· Reducing physical tension.
· Overcoming mental blocks to success.
· Address ‘expecting too much of yourself’. Feeling you are not doing yourself justice.
· Trying to please others (team members, coaches) rather than yourself.
· Avoiding certain circumstances e.g. never playing in new places, always wanting to practise in certain places or finding excuses for not playing or entering competitions.
· Comparing yourself unfavourably to others.
· Improving technique. (Maintain focus and eliminate distractions)
· Improve mental stamina and increase endurance.
· Focusing. (This can be on such things as success, strategy and other outcomes).
· Reinforcing self belief and motivation.

Using hypno-psychotherapeutic techniques, clients can learn to change unhelpful thoughts which, if not addressed, can generate anxiety. Thoughts like; 'I'll never be good enough', 'I'll make a fool of myself' or 'I'm bound to mess up or get hurt' can become more realistic such as 'we all have off days, it doesn't mean it will always be like this', or 'If I do mess up, then I'll cope, get back up and learn from my mistakes'.

We can use beneficial suggestion to help control the unconscious mind and allow clients to alter behaviour and feelings that have previously been detrimental to their sporting performance.
The therapy works because we access the unconscious mind which is the part where good and bad memories are stored and where we keep information about previous performances. By focusing on only the good performances, we can help push the bad ones out of our client’s mind preventing them from recalling past mistakes again. With those bad experiences gone, there is less chance of our client repeating them when playing in the future. Our client can then just focus on a picture of exactly what they want to do, how they're going to do it and the feelings associated with getting it right.