Elevate Your Sports Performance with Hypnosis
“Barry is a Magician with the human mind.”
Marianne Berglund Ph.D. Former World Champion 10 times National Champion
Two-time Olympic Cyclist
Working with Barry
“Too bad you’re not on staff — Imagine? Thank you again for helping make our team one of the Nation’s best.” Lynn Rogers, Titan Gymnastics, California State University, Fullerton.
“Students definitely experienced a new level of consciousness and mental preparation for an intercollegiate volleyball match.” Teri McFarland, Palomar College Volleyball Coach.
“You were both informative and entertaining and captured the interest of the 100+ plus GGTC athletes who want to maximise their potential.” Todd Greenhalgh, Golden Gate Triathlon Club.
“Our coaching staff recognised a significant improvement in our players to play relaxed in pressure situations. Our free throw percentage went from 64.28 to 78.68.” R. Johnson, Palomar Basketball.
The Big Question! Will hypnosis work for me?
IT ABSOLUTELY CAN
“The hypnotist puts nothing there, but he gets the individual to RISE to the highest levels he can reach” Dr Kroger
Some people are more hypnotically gifted than others and Like any skill development, the process of hypnosis receptiveness is a personal journey.
It can have a profound effect in a very short period of time, but like any therapy there has to be a strong desire for a change and a belief in the process. Hypnosis is not a panacea, as medications are not to a physician. A hypnotherapist prescribes words, as every person is unique then it’s important that these words are succinct and relative.
The Role of Hypnosis in Sports Performance
It is now generally accepted (from the evidence of brain scans) that there is a measurable alteration to the brain when ‘hypnosis’ is present compared with when hypnosis is not present(1)(2).
Thus, the issue of whether there is (or is not) a thing called ‘hypnosis’ is currently settled.
A 2019 research article titled, Hypnosis In The Clutch(3), found that hypnosis-based intervention enhanced self-confidence by causing the participants to believe they could produce exceptional performances. This study is worth highlighting in training, because a wealth of evidence suggests self-confidence is one of the most important psychological variables associated with optimal performance in sports(4).
My Journey
Competing in the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii initiated my awareness of the “altered state of mind ” that it took to participate in such events. Subsequently, in an EXTREME biathlon (vertical feet climbed 23,340; temperature 45C) from Death Valley to the peak of Mt Whitney, I experienced a 4-hour loss of time while racing. Fascinated by the experience of this trance state, I turned my studies to hypnosis.
I received my advanced clinical education in hypnosis through the University of California - San Diego. UCSD offered the course to physicians and health professionals as an adjunct to traditional medicine.
During the time of my participation in UCSD’s program, I was teaching/coaching at another University of California campus. I began integrating this knowledge into my coaching and also into my health education syllabus. Some of my students asked me to perform a comedy hypnosis show in the dorms. Within a couple of years, this first performance blossomed into a full-time profession of two hundred-plus shows and speaking engagements a year.
One of my favorite books is Malcolm Gladdwell’s book, Outliers, in which he looked at the Story of Success and what criteria one must meet to be an expert. He and others surmised that the number of hours for any master in a field of endeavor is at least 10,000. Because of Glaldwell’s book, I’ve worked out my own hours in the field of hypnosis: in 35+ years, I hypnotized well over 100,000 people. As a result, I have become acutely aware of the subtleties and nuances for successful outcomes in hypnotized subjects.
Research using fMRI suggests some individuals are more hypnotically gifted than others; however, OPENNESS and TRUST in the process paves the way for a successful outcome. There is an elegance in the simplicity of hypnosis and the profound changes it can make.
Laughter Is the Best Medicine
The stage has allowed me to deliver entertainment and education to a massive population that otherwise would never have realised the potential of hypnosis.
I have always adopted more of a Monty Python delivery where the silliness of the suggestion becomes the focus of laughter. Underlying the fun is the message that we have the means to alter our behaviour by our own volition.
How Hypnosis Can Help Sports Performance
Reduce performance anxiety
Remove self-made limitations or blockages
Increase self-belief and confidence
Learn anger control
Facilitate better visualization and mental rehearsal
Positively reframe and release past negative experiences
Increase motivation
Remove any negative thoughts before, during, and after competition, and replace with positive thoughts
Improve specific skills by practicing mental rehearsal techniques
Improve healthy habits including nutrition, weight control, sleep, substance abuse, self-care/balance, etc.
Enhance healing from injury and promote return with intact confidence
References
The Winning Combination—— Physical and Mental Conditioning
There is NO substitute for extraordinary fitness in competitive team sports. Of course skill work is imperative, but once your fitness level deteriorates so does your skill.
If an athlete does not have the fitness or skill necessary for a sport, no amount of hypnosis will help them. Hypnosis is not a panacea or an easy way out.
Most of the athletes I work with have a supreme level of fitness and skill; their minds, however, CAN lack in mental conditioning. This is by no means a negative connotation, it is merely a lack of experiential coping mechanisms.
Having said this, I also see hardened veterans who lack confidence. There is a myriad of physiological reasons why an athlete has performance blues, and that is why no hypnosis session can be treated in the same way.
Every person has the ability to experience hypnosis. When I facilitate the process, it is still self-hypnosis and cannot happen unless the individual wants to participate.
All Hypnosis is Self Hypnosis
Talking with England 7s Captain Ben Gollings
England Rugby 7s squad experiencing hypnosis
Of all the players I met in my life, Ben Gollings was the most fascinated by self-development. His leadership and influence on his team was profound in the 2009 World Rugby 7s Championships. New Zealand had never beaten at home. England, down by 20 points at halftime with a capacity crowd watching in Wellington, rose to the occasion led by Ben’s confidence went on to win.
I asked some of the other players about what was said at halftime. By their accounts, Ben Gollings was SO sure they were going to win the game that every player was persuaded to his conviction. They told me they never doubted him, it was as if it was a given.
Your sense of self and your emotional balance can have a profound effect on others. Considerable amounts of time are given to skills and fitness training, how much of your time is allocated to mental conditioning?
Go to my blog post for a full account of using Hypnosis, Imagery, and Autogenic Training to Enhance Gymnastic Performance
A number of years ago I worked with a Gymnastics club that has turned out numerous Olympiads. I was asked to work with the women's team on their most difficult apparatus, the balance beam. Using a process of hypnosis and visualization, I had them perform an inward imagined exercise of their performance. Highly trained athletes are typically very motivated to participate. They love the feeling of letting go, but still being in control! The faces of the gymnasts displayed emotional expressions during the hypnosis. Only one face remained relaxed, and her expression was one of serenity. Afterward, reviewing the first part of the exercise, they were asked to describe their performance. Every gymnast, except one, stated they fell off the beam. Our "lady of serenity" had performed her routine perfectly. I was unsurprised to learn that, of all the girls, she was slated for the Olympics. When I led them in the same exercise again, I told the athletes that there would be no mistakes in their routine. Now I observed many more peaceful expressions with the new instruction. In the discussion after, only one athlete stated that she could not complete her exercise without falling off the beam.
The Gymnastic Mind Game---Facebook Site
I was always told that "Practice Makes Perfect" - we have to be careful when we throw around these words of wisdom. Because we can also practice something incorrectly; then our practice becomes perfectly incorrect! If those athletes continued to see themselves falling off the beam in their routine, then in all likelihood, this would have a realistic transfer to their physical performance. Hypnosis is such a remarkably powerful self-help technique. It allows us to create an emotional and physical experience as though we are actually physically experiencing it. When carefully instructed in utilizing all senses during the inner exercise, our minds experience the imagery as though it occurred in live-time.
Using Self Hypnosis to Improve Stroke Technique
Correct streamlined body position for freestyle
Do you remember the idiom, ‘Practice makes perfect?’ Like many athletes, I recognised that I had been taught/coached incorrectly. My incorrect motor patterns became entrenched in my memory banks. I am not saying that you cannot change them… but the longer you spend practicing anything incorrectly, the harder it is going to be for you to undo those mistakes.
One of my many problems was a flat body position and nothing like the picture above! Technically this was due to lack of rotation around my central axis, which led to a myriad of other mechanical problems. I powered my way through the water to make up for it.
Without realising the inefficiency of my stroke, I opted for ‘practice makes perfect’ by putting in many perfectly incorrect miles. I developed great muscular and cardiovascular endurance. Unfortunately, the incorrect technique was counterproductive; contributing to further muscle imbalance.
Counting how many strokes it took for me to swim one length, was one of my coach’s earliest lessons. The number wasn’t impressive! After just one coaching session, that included exhausting drills, I reduced that number by a third. Quite a dramatic change but I could only do it for one length. The signals from my brain to my muscle were getting confused. “Wait a minute now. We spent hours and hours doing it this way and now you want us to CHANGE?” my unhappy motor nerves complained.
Making them happy meant changing deeply embedded motor signals. Now, this is where self-hypnosis/visualisation comes into play.
During self-hypnosis, you can replicate the mechanics of the movement BY VISUALIZING THE DRILLS. In turn, this ‘practice’ re-educates the muscles at an accelerated rate …without even getting in the water. Sounds too good to be true, but all hypnosis does is create a point of focus. Imagine how a magnifying glass focuses the sun’s rays to intensify its heat. Your attention is focused on physically intensifying the new behaviour into your neuronal pathways.
For review, or for greater understanding, see the links below.
A Review of the Development of Sport Hypnosis as a Performance Enhancement Method for Athletes
Improving Sports Performance using Hypnosis, Mental Imagery and Self-talk
Like any skill development, the process of self-hypnosis receptiveness is a personal journey. Some people must work a little harder than others, but everybody can experience profound accelerated change with practice.