Sports Improvement

Hypnosis For Golf Performance – Sports Performance Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

by Dan Regan | Feb 3, 2022 | Sports Improvement

Hypnosis For Golf Performance – Sports Performance Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

Recently I’ve been working with a golfer to help him to overcome issues and unhelpful habits with a certain part of his game. As anyone who takes part in a sport will know, there is always scope for tweaking, learning and improving, yet there can also be aspects where the improvement doesn’t seem to happen.

I know from my own running and training that sometimes a run or session just doesn’t go to plan. Maybe other aspects of life are getting in the way and affecting things, maybe you are tired, or it could just be an off occasion for some reason. It’s never great but you know it’s a blip and you expect things to be back on the usual positive track next time.

However, there can be aspects of your sport where things just seem to always be awry. It can be anxiety, self-doubt, a lack of belief in your own ability, worry what others think, the legacy of a previous poor performance, too much tension or overthinking. Each and all of these things drain energy and undermine your performance.

I’ve worked with golfers who get anxious and tense only when playing with certain other people or only when playing in a competition. There are those who overthink their actions and so don’t swing smoothly and strike the ball cleanly. And there may be certain shots or conditions where you expect to mess up and then you become tense and make it a reality (and having done so, you then expect to mess up again and anticipate happening again with similar shots in the future). As well as tackling the psychological aspects and unhelpful habits, there are also those golfers whose game is fine yet who want to use their mindset and sports psychology to improve their play and increase their level of performance.

In this article I’m covering some of the research and evidence that supports hypnosis for golf performance and which covers how to improve your game.

Improving Football Performance with Hypnosis – Hypnotherapy in Ely

by Dan Regan | Sep 28, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Improving Football Performance with Hypnosis – Hypnotherapy in Ely

I’ve written many times before about the research and evidence for improving sports performance using hypnosis and sports psychology. In any sport, including football that I am talking about here, your mindset plays an influential role in your performance.

Using hypnosis can help you to improve your soccer performance through management of your emotional levels, effective visualisation and harnessing your self-talk constructively. You can draw upon previous successful performances, learn from role models, build your sense of self belief and capability and prime your mind for successful performance.

Using these psychological techniques and strategies can help you with staying focused, decision making, skill development and handling challenges. When things aren’t going well for you or the team, or you make a mistake, how you orchestrate your thoughts and feelings will have a massive impact on whether you bounce back or let your performance deteriorate.

I find it fascinating watching football due to the emotions and psychology involved. Some players rise under pressure and goading from the opposition and perform at their best, while other sink under the weight of it all. Some players look like they want to be there and to play and seem to have endless energy and insight, while others are lethargic and lack belief in themselves. And when things go wrong, such as missing a penalty, losing the ball or a mistimed tackle, a player can either refocus and get back on with it, or a lack of belief or the ‘red mist’ ruin the rest of their game.

Whatever your position on the pitch, you will benefit from confidence and a belief in your own ability. You can call upon psychological techniques to improve your ability to bring the ball under control, to complete successful passes and to make successful tackles.

Research suggests that hypnosis can help you to improve your soccer performance. If you want to consistently play at your best, then hypnosis for football performance may be the strategy that helps you get there and stay there.

Hypnosis For Advanced Sports Performance

by Dan Regan | Jul 29, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Hypnosis For Advanced Sports Performance

The Olympics and Paralympics have been and gone and the football season is now in full swing once again. In this article, I’m covering a brief, research-based technique that can help with improving sports performance. It can be applied to most sports to help you with your mindset and goal achievement.

I’ve still been busy with my high intensity bootcamps, although my achillies’ niggle continues to prevent me from getting back into running properly. However, every cloud has a silver lining and so I’ve had more time to work on strength and to take part in some pretty intense and gruelling personal training sessions (the suffering has got to be worth it, right?!). The goal is to be much stronger and more resilient by the time my running resumes and, in the meantime, to make the most of the extra time and energy to train hard and train well.

So without further ado, lets take a look at the benefits and support for hypnosis for sports performance, and how you can use this to boost your mindset and find that extra level of attainment and performance towards your sporting goals.

Hypnosis For Performance In Air Rifle Shooting Competition

by Dan Regan | Jul 6, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Hypnosis For Performance In Air Rifle Shooting Competition

I work with many people to help them with aspects of sports psychology and improving their performance. It’s always a joy to work with people who have such passion, drive and motivation to get better at what they do.

Frustratingly, my own running has had to take a back seat recently with a couple of persistent minor niggles keeping me away from it. Thankfully high intensity bootcamp training has continued, albeit with modifications to avoid running and jumping, or anything else that could over stress my ankle or achillies right now.

To try and counter these niggles and make me more injury-proof in future, I’ve started some personal training sessions to go alongside my bootcamps. I always find it amazing how you can feel relatively fit and strong doing certain familiar exercises, only to take on something new and feel like a complete novice. After a session today I don’t think my body knows what has hit it! The muscle soreness tomorrow may be off the chart… Yet it’s all an opportunity to learn, adapt, get fitter and stronger, and come back into running all the better for having gone through this shock to the system.

Recently I’ve been working with an air rifle shooter to help them to enhance their performance and boost their confidence and self-belief ready for competition. And as part of my research and session preparation, I came acress a research paper that specifically looked into the use of hypnosis on performance in air rifle shooting competitions.

Running Psychology and Performance

by Dan Regan | May 29, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Running Psychology and Performance

I’ve been busy increasing my running distances over recent weeks as I prepare for an ultramarathon later in the year (which is more likely to be an extended jog while eating cake!). This, as well as all of the runners and sportspeople I work with, has naturally led me to go into more depth about running psychology and how hypnosis helps. In this article I’m bringing together several of my recent posts so that you can find them all in one place.

My training took a bit of a hit a few weeks ago, due to side effects from the covid jab, which led to all sorts of unwell and fatigue for a week or so. Thankfully, since then my training at bootcamp and with my running seems to have returned to pre-jab levels.

This past weekend I went out and ran fifteen and a half miles around Ely and down the riverbank. It was a sweltering hot day than had me wishing quite quickly that I had got up at least an hour earlier to get more done before the sun came out. Running along the riverbank trails is one of my favourite routes right now, and on a pleasantly warm day (not a heatwave!) it is a joy to see the wildlife and to be around nature.

I’ve been busy checking out races for later in the year and have a good idea of the ones I’d like to do once I have summer training under my belt. It’ll be strange to enter a race and be there on the start line with other runners (complete with the aroma of deep heat!), after so long away from it. I can’t wait!

In the meantime, as well as running, I’m continuing to investigate, research and write more and more about running psychology. Hypnosis can help you in so many ways with your running psychology and improving your running performance. Recently I’ve been working with runners on issues like motivation, running anxiety, running confidence and more. Knowing what it takes to train, persist, turn up on the day and complete a race, means I love helping other runners with all aspects of running psychology, such as finding more enjoyment, positivity, confidence and self-belief in their running, as well as improving their running performance.

So here are some running psychology resources that you can start incorporating into your running from today…

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.

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…

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.

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.

Running Hypnosis: Getting Over A Perceived Running Failure

by Dan Regan | Mar 24, 2021 | Sports Improvement

Running Hypnosis: Getting Over A Perceived Running Failure

If you’ve been running for any length of time then the chances are that you’ve had those training runs or races where everything seems to just come together and you set a personal best, you perform well, you tackle a difficult course, you’ve felt accomplished or where you’ve enjoyed running successfully in some way. Who doesn’t love that positive, good feeling that comes at the end of a good run?

As I think back upon my running history, I can recall times where I’ve set a PB and felt good for it, times when I’ve made progress and felt accomplished and snapshots from other running events and races where I’ve performed to my best and where I’ve felt good as a result. As we run and train more we learn more about the best preparation, training and strategies that work for us. We can refine, amend and improve what we do and how we do it.

But, of course, there are also those runs that we have all encountered where there are setbacks and challenges along the way. You fail to finish, you run badly, you don’t meet your own goals and expectations. I think I’ve had my share of these, such as not finishing an ultra, struggling through a marathon, not pushing on in a 10km, feeling unwell, niggling something or where a run or race just hasn’t gone to plan for some other reason.

When we encounter these setbacks and perceived failures it can be disappointing and demoralising. Often, after a time, we can shrug them off and get back on with it, hopefully with improved wisdom and learning to apply it in our running. Yet sometimes that perceived failure can rankle and stay with you. It can damage your belief in your capability and your confidence in your running. It can lead to doubt, anxiety, and worry about a repeat or about whether you can do it. When negative thoughts and feelings creep in based upon a previous running performance, you want to be able to learn from it and move on from it in constructive and beneficial ways.

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