Sports are about action. If its athletics, we just want to see the athlete in the track and hear the fired shot from the gun and see the race begin. If it’s on a football field we just want to hear the referee blow his whistle to signify the beginning of a football match. Most of us are interested with the action that sports erupts and are oblivious of the preparation and the mental state that needs to be harnessed in the backstage .
Meditation in sports is equally important as the sport itself. It’s not only important to win a game, but it’s equally important that you harness the required mental capacity to win the game. Don’t make a mistake of thinking that as a sportsman meditation only works to steal time away from you. You will be surprised how lack of it steals many games away, games that should be won are lost, and fatigue that would be avoided is experienced.
Importance of Meditation in Sports
- It helps to stimulate and improve focus and concentration by easing your mental faculties from external barriers and disruptions that will prevent you from achieving your goal. Experts argue that meditation expands the span of concentration within your brain.
- It is a sure remedy for fear. It enhances inner strength that helps to deal with external fear
- Meditation is also a positive boost for the immune system
- It helps you as a sportsman harness your peak moments and manage your weakness. Without meditation you may not know when you are losing concentration and when you are in your peak moment.
- There are proven health benefits of meditation which is important with sports. E.g. Lower stress hormone responses, improved digestive functions, etc.
- Meditation has been attributed to the realization of innate abilities which does not come from the natural intellectual system of thought. Meditation helps you harness that ability that you just don’t think about in an instance.
- Meditation in Sports helps the sports men and women deal with the changes in climate playing conditions and the mental attitudes associated with social and geographical shifts.
- Meditation helps with sleep. Sleep is very important for everyone and more so for sports personalities. Sleep and rest helps in regeneration of worn out cells and meditation helps to free the mind so that sleep is realized.
Now that Meditation in Sports is important, what next?
- Develop a practice of meditation before, on and after sporting activity. You may ask even after a sporting activity? Yes because it helps with assessing yourself, where you failed and where you succeeded in order to improve next time.
- You may want to engage with your coach and other members of your team to practice Team meditation which will boosts the team mentality as well as boost the mental capacity of members within the team.
- It’s important that as a team you have brief session before a sporting activity. Remember it’s not just about winning a game but winning it in the right way.
- Coaches and players need to work together to manage stress and burnout that comes from intense sporting activities. Now you see the importance of a team doctor! A team doctor is not there just to nurse injuries but also to journey with a player through those times of burnout and intense fatigue. No wonder sporting teams in the developed countries have not only team doctors but a whole equipped medical team.
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