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Get your physical game
in order by clearing your mind and concentrating
on the positive.
Call the 'Doc' for Mind
Mending
By Rochelle DelGazo Billera
July 2001
The CollegeBound Network NewsClick -- Close your
eyes and relax. Concentrate on slow, deep breathing.
Imagine you are frolicking in a field of beautiful
blue skies, with fluffy white clouds. There is
no pressure. No distractions. Only the sound of
a soothing voice, asking you to count aloud slowly,
stopping at a certain number.
That's when a "trance
state" is achieved. In this instance, you're
between being asleep and awake, and almost anything
is possible, says Wes Patterson, Ph.D., a Miami,
FL-based psychologist. Patterson knows this all
too well since he coaches and counsels plenty
of rising professional athletes on the mental
aspect of the game, and uses hypnosis to accomplish
this.
Fears and phobias can be
better approached in a trance state, through the
subconscious mind's eye, explains Patterson, and
this enables you to see things more clearly. Learning
to use your subconscious helps to bring out your
creativity, by putting you in with your issues
and eliminating external and internal pressures.
"The mind is so powerful,"
reveals Patterson, that "a person [particularly
an athlete] can completely fall apart under pressure.
When the subconscious translates to the conscious
mind, it can actually cause physical effects."
Patterson focuses on positive
areas when helping athletes achieve peak performance.
In the trance, he says, noise and distractions
can be blocked out, time slowed down, and feelings
of relaxation can help you better focus and concentrate
in the conscious state. Just ask Chuck Knoblauch,
second-baseman for the New York Yankees. Many
baseball players have the athletic ability to
excel, but are plagued by mental blocks, anxiety,
or some psychological stress -- factors that keep
them from performing at their best. For Knoblauch,
i was the inability to throw the ball from 2nd
to 1st base. He sought the expertise of psychological
intervention, hoping that his mind could help
him achieve what his body alone could not do.
Knoblauch eventually had to change positions.
"The difference between
a great athlete and an average one or a failure,
is all mental," Patterson insists, "particularly
when each have the same physical equipment."
The mind is the most powerful
muscle we have. In flexing it, Patterson affirms,
an athlete can achieve a psychological homerun,
which can easily transform itself into a physical
one on the playing field.
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