Dan’s Blog

Reducing Running Anxiety To Help Your Running Performance

by Dan Regan | May 20, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Reducing Running Anxiety To Help Your Running Performance

Running training and racing can be filled with a sense of excitement and positivity. If you’ve been training for a key race that you really want to take part in, then you can geel upbeat, enthused, excited and filled with motivation and positive anticipation for it.

Yet sometimes, anxiety can rear it’s head around your running. Maybe you find yourself feeling uncomfortably nervous, tense and edgy about certain parts of your running performance. It may be those long training runs that make you feel anxious, you might have negative thoughts about training with others, feel tense about the pressures of speedwork or find that your running anxiety impairs your performance when you run or race.

Certainly race day tends to bring at least some level of nervousness, excitement and anticipation as you get up and get ready and onto the start line. But too much anxiety about the race can mean you don’t feel at your best, that you feel tense and tired, and your mind can fill with negative thoughts and doubt about your running and your ability to perform as well as you know you can.

Any over-arousal before your train or race is going to burn up your energy, tense up your muscles, and mean you may not achieve your running goals or perform how you want to. Some runners I’ve worked with find themselves even feeling anxious (about something they chose to do and want to do!) a few days before. It can affect sleep and fuelling. It can lead to countless trips to the toilet, it can make you irritable and uncertain, and it can lead to that queasy, sick feeling in your stomach. On top of that, anxiety can leave you wondering if you are able to run well, whether things are likely to go wrong, how you’ll cope if you don’t achieve your goal and countless other worst case scenarios and self doubts inside your mind.

The Hypnotic Mindset and Hypnosis

by Dan Regan | May 18, 2021 | Hypnotherapy Hypnosis and NLP

The Hypnotic Mindset and Hypnosis

The other day, during a hypnotherapy consultation at my office here in Ely, a client asked about hypnosis and mentioned how they had read online about the subconscious mind and so on. Sadly, the way that hypnosis is talked about and portrayed in many quarters (including by some hypnotherapists) with a sense of mind control, mysticism, magic and mystery, means that it is no wonder that people are uncertain about what hypnosis is and what it entails.

Whilst we often joke about it, many people do expect me to pull out a swinging watch or to zap them somehow, in a way that leads to magical improvement (and where they will have no idea how it happened). There are many hypnotherapists and others who continue to advocate that hypnosis is a passive process for a client and that some form of unseen, unknown change occurs at the unconscious level. Even more sadly, these myths and misconceptions (and downright inaccuracies) put many people off seeking a form of therapy that could really help them (and that has scientific research and evidence to support its application).

Far from being a therapy where you are controlled by a hypnotist and unaware of what is going on, hypnosis allows you to take control over the kind of things going on inside your mind. Rather than being passive, you get to be active and engaged in your own progress and improvement, which stands you in good stead for the future because you know how to orchestrate your thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. Hypnosis is a process that you actively participate in rather than being a passive that you respond mechanically to resulting in hypnosis.

Whilst we do things non-conconsciously and sometimes habitually and seemingly automatically, our minds work on pattern and repetition. In most cases, you will find yourselves thinking, feeling and doing things in a way that you did in a previous, similar situation or experience. By working out how your mind is doing this pattern, and how it continues to do it, you can interrupt that pattern and create a new way of thinking, feeling and doing things that serves you better in that situation. You get to take control and choose what goes on inside your own mind (how awesome is that!).

Successful hypnosis involves you participating in the process of your own improvement. You adopt a positive mindset, build upon your motivation to change, grow your confidence in their ability to make changes, and create optimistic about the process, expecting to experience the things you are seeking from the hypnotherapy. Whatever your issue or starting point, you become better and better at orchestrating your mindset, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions.

Running Psychology: Increase Running Performance By Picking The Pink

by Dan Regan | May 17, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Running Psychology: Increase Running Performance By Picking The Pink

As my own running training ramps up a bit, I’ve been writing much more about running psychology and how you can improve your running performance. Drawing upon successful races and training runs can help you to increase confidence and belief in your own running ability so that you can overcome past poor performances and achieve your future running goals.

If you want to run to the best of your ability and potential, then applying elements of running psychology will certainly help you. You can take control over your self-talk, confidence, self-belief, imagination, motivation and many other aspects of your thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. You can harness and direct your mindset towards running how you want to.

Today I’m talking about some research that goes to demonstrate just how important your psychology is towards your performance when running.

It’s incredible how much what goes on in your head can impact upon your running performance. That little voice in your head can help you push on and improve, or can niggle away and undermine you. What you imagine before and during a run can influence your motivation, confidence and arousal levels. Your confidence and belief in your running ability has a huge bearing on how well you run. And then there are all the other factors that can get in your head, from tiredness, hills, other people and more. I’ve known runners who smash it in training, only to be overwhelmed with anxiety and self-doubt at the starting line of a race. I’ve known runners who find that the negative thoughts sabotage what they are doing. And there are runners who are able to consistently perform, run well and stay up beat due to what goes on inside their heads, and who may even perform above expectations as a result.

And your mind is even more amazing than that. If you perceive something to be beneficial then it can improve your running performance, simply due to your expectation of a positive outcome (which is perhaps why so many runners and sports people have certain consistent rituals or habits that they carry out because they perceive them to be beneficial).

Here is more evidence of how your mind impacts upon your running performance…

Reducing Anxiety and Take Control Over Your Thoughts and Feelings

by Dan Regan | May 13, 2021 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Reducing Anxiety and Take Control Over Your Thoughts and Feelings

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has had a massive impact upon many people’s mental health and well-being. There has been stress, worry and anxiety through the many stages of restrictions, lockdowns and opening up that have taken place over the months.

You can find many articles about the mental health impact of the pandemic on this website, and I’ve written about anxiety, fear, sleep problems and alcohol consumption, among other things. Covid 19 related anxiety, stress and worry has become a serious psychological issue.

If your mental health has been impacted upon by the pandemic then you may well be experiencing elevated levels of anxiety, stress or health anxiety. And I’ve certainly been helping people who are finding the removal of restrictions and the opening up of more aspects of our ‘normal’ lives to be causing problematic anxiety. Covid 19 anxiety syndrome can lead to avoidance, checking and heightened levels of worry and distress.

Covid 19 anxiety syndrome can involve issues such as avoiding public places (such a shops) due to the fear of contracting coronavirus, checking yourself (and others) for symptoms of Covid-19, becoming absorbed in news about the virus at the cost of getting on with other things, and imagining what could happen to family members if they contracted coronavirus (Nikčević and Spada, 2020). In essence, this anxiety syndrome, whilst pertaining specifically to Covid-19, involves the usual elements of anxiety, with avoidance, excessive worry, a heightened awareness of potential threat and all the accompanying unwanted thoughts and feelings.

Many of these anxiety issues may well continue to affect you even after the pandemic has passed, as anxiety certainly has a tendency to filter and generalise onto other aspects of what you think, feel and do. The good news, however, is that it is definitely possible to reduce your anxiety, interrupt unwanted thought processes and feelings, and to take back control over your thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions in ways that mean that you feel calm, confident and in control.

Runners Therapy in Ely And Newmarket: Using Your Mind To Boost Your Confidence and Self-Esteem

by Dan Regan | May 10, 2021 | Confidence and Self Esteem, Sports Improvement

Runners’ Therapy in Ely And Newmarket: Using Your Mind To Boost Your Confidence and Self-Esteem

It’s been twenty or so years since I took up running properly. Before that I’d done a bit of jogging and running but in a much more haphazard and inconsistent way. Over the last two decade, except for time out with injuries, I’ve pretty much kept on donning my trainers and heading out of the door.

To my mind, running reflects so many aspects of life. There are the good times, and the not so good: the smooth times when you feel on top of the world, and those where you have to draw upon every ounce of persistence and determination to overcome challenges. Both inside and outside of running, you can have all sorts of inner dialogue, thoughts, feelings, expectations and beliefs.

When I suffered with anxiety, low confidence and low self-esteem, running was my crutch for everything. I would run after a good day and also to try and cope and deal with the less good days. I would run to try and feel better in myself, often succeeding for a while, yet the anxiety and mental health challenges in the rest of my life remained.

If I missed a run I would feel irritable, tense, frustrated and down. I could even go so far to say that in those days when my mental health struggles were the strongest, I felt like I absolutely needed to run and I had to run just to keep afloat in my life. Unless you’ve struggled with your mental health and experienced the highs that running can bring, you may struggle to understand the intensity of feeling and the need and desperation that comes from finding a way to demonstrate your own worth to yourself (and others), to find relief from the suffering and the need to run in order to cope.

There are many, many mental health benefits that come from exercise, yet running doesn’t always allow for full mental health recovery and relief, and those same old unwanted thoughts and feelings can continue to hold you back in other aspects of your life.

Mental Health Awareness Week – Mental Health and Nature

by Dan Regan | May 10, 2021 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Mental Health Awareness Week – Mental Health and Nature

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and the focus is all about noticing nature and making a habit of connecting to nature every day. Of course, every day of every year should be about helping and supporting everyone to promote their good mental health and well-being (along with their good physical health too), yet an awareness week helps to remind us all of the importance of self-care and looking after ourselves better.

Spending time in nature has a lot of research to support its benefits for your mental health. It can help you to reduce your anxiety and stress levels, and can help boost your mental health and well-being. I certainly find that running and walking in nature helps me to feel calmer, more positive and boosts my own sense of well-being (and exercise, such as walking or running, helps with mental health too).

In my opinion, few things beat finding a nice quiet place to enjoy and explore nature on a nice day. Getting away from the usual daily load at home and work, and switching off from screens, means you can just focus on the sights, smells and sounds of what is going on around you.

Hypnosis Downloads – New Audios Now Available!

by Dan Regan | May 6, 2021 | Hypnotherapy Hypnosis and NLP

Hypnosis Downloads – New Audios Now Available!

After quite some wait, due to the pandemic, I was really pleased to finally be able to get back into the recording studio and create some brand new hypnosis downloads for you.

There are several new titles now available that cover help to reduce anxiety, increasing your confidence, gaining a more positive mindset and outlook, and reducing unwanted thoughts and feelings. I’m really happy to be able to share them and I can’t wait to hear your feedback too!

Anxiety Triggers and The Covid Vaccine

by Dan Regan | Apr 26, 2021 | Anxiety Stress and Panic Attacks

Anxiety Triggers and The Covid Vaccine

The other Saturday I went and queued in line to have my Covid vaccine jab. It was a beautiful sunny day so I walked there and joined the line of about thirty people, all calmly waiting our turn to get the jab.

I felt good that day. I’d been for a lovely ten mile run along the river and was pleased with how strongly I ran. I walked the five mile round trip to get my vaccine. I came home feeling fine and then later I felt quite tired but nothing else.

By the early hours I was shivering, burning up, moaning, unsettled, uncomfortable and feeling like I’d been hit by a truck! I know some people had no reactions to their Covid jab, but I was knocked for six. For someone who had run ten miles the day before, I struggled to sit up in bed to have a drink! And it’s no secret in our house (just ask my wife) that I’m a very bad patient indeed! My kids did me more than proud though while I was out of action (and my wife had a reaction to the jab too) and did things together nicely, fetched and carried and were all around pleasant and helpful (apart from the sniggering because they’ve never seen me so ill and incapable before!).

The jab itself is a doddle. Answer a few questions about medical type things (most of which I’d never even heard of) and within a painless second it’s all over and they give you the ‘I’ve had my Covid vaccination’ sticker and send you on your way. If you do struggle with things like needles and injections though, get in touch because I can help you with that.

However, vaccinations and needles aside, there was one thing during my appointment that reminded me of an old anxiety trigger that really used to get to me and send my anxiety soaring.

Achieve Your Running Goal – Running Therapy & Psychology

by Dan Regan | Apr 20, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Achieve Your Running Goal – Running Therapy & Psychology

As runners, we know the importance of setting goals from training and racing and of then consistently and persistently following training plans and schedules that get us there. Whether it’s a goal about speed, distance, racing or some other aspects of running, having a goal keeps you focused, motivated and moving.

Recently, I’ve been gradually building up my long weekend runs towards an autumn ultra, and last Saturday headed out for a sixteen mile long run along the riverside here in Ely (on a beautiful sunny morning). In the past my goals have been for other races and distances and from 5k up to marathon and ultra marathon.

I’ve worked with many runners over the years and goals can vary from getting motivated enough to get out of the door, having the confidence to complete a first race or to run a whole 10k, getting over a psychological setback or injury, and having the mental strength to complete, to long distance racing (or running as part of an Ironman). And, of course, I’ve helped many runners with other issues, such as anxiety, stress, worry and depression, that have impacted upon their running and which, once resolved, mean they can enjoy running again.

And I think we know that, without a running goal of some kind, it’s easy to just plod along run after run with no specific aim from each run, from each training period and with nothing in particular to aim for. I’ve found in the past that without a running goal, my running can plateau a bit, the temptation to cut short a challenging run gets greater, training levels become more constant, and the fire and determination from having a race to aim for just isn’t present.

When you have a goal, you also want to build your confidence, motivation and self-belief that you can complete it successfully. You want to be able to dispel any negative inner dialogue or anxiety and you want to enjoy the process so that you can perform to your running best on the day. By using your mindset, you can build upon your training and hard work so that you can perform to the best of your ability and achieve your running goals.

From Night Owl To Early Bird: How I Became A Morning Person

by Dan Regan | Apr 20, 2021 | Hypnotherapy Hypnosis and NLP

From Night Owl To Early Bird: How I Became A Morning Person

The other day my wife suggested to me that I operate on a different time zone to everyone else. And that’s pretty true in our household where, whether it’s a week day, holiday, weekend or any other day, I will invariably be up and active while the rest of them are still in sleepsville.

Now, I don’t know how other people do things and what time they get up and go to bed, but whereas a few years ago the thought of getting up early was a complete non-starter, now I can think of nothing worse than missing the best part of the day. There was a time when I went to bed late-ish and struggled to get up in the morning, with it seemingly taking me a good couple of hours and many coffees before my brain kick started.

If I had to get up early in those days it meant an evening of stressing about trying to get enough sleep, a few hours lying in bed thinking how tired I would be the next day and then a long, long day with a foggy head and an ongoing urge to yawn.

Recently I was talking to a client who wanted to move from staying up late to getting up early and being more of a morning person. He wanted to get up while it was quiet and have some time where he could read, study, meditate, exercise or whatever other positive thing he wanted to do before all the challenges, distractions, interruptions and noise of the day took over. And so we talked about how I managed to make the transition to becoming a morning person after years of insisting it wasn’t even humanly possible for me to that.

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