I’m excited to launch our "Coaches Ask a Sport Psychologist" video series with a compelling question: "How beneficial is meditation when it's not specifically sports-related, but more about relaxation?"

In this episode, I address common misconceptions about meditation in sports. Instead of viewing it merely as a relaxation tool, I explore how meditation strengthens an athlete's ability to remain present and fully engaged, even amidst internal distractions. Discover the transition from control-based mental strategies to acceptance-based approaches that allow athletes to acknowledge thoughts without letting them hinder performance.

Dive in to learn how embracing mindfulness can be a game-changer for both coaches and athletes aiming for peak performance.

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Edited Video Transcript:

The question asked by a coach is, “how much does meditation help assuming it's not even sports related, just like relaxation?”

When we talk about meditation as a practice in sport and performance, usually what's being suggested… the target behavior that's being suggested to improve, is the ability to be present in whatever the performance environment is. Whether it's competition, or some sort of expressive performance, or even just a high-pressure situation.

Ultimately, as a coach, we want our athletes, or our performers, to bring all their attention to that moment and to executing on whatever the game plan is; or on detecting that the moment has changed and responding to that change in an advantageous manner. So when we're recommending that somebody meditate as a skill, what we're trying to recommend is that they build their ability to stay present.

Meditation in this context is a practice in noticing everything that's going on, or noticing things in an intentional manner. It's in response to common behaviors around being a little bit reactive, easily hooked, or otherwise kind of bouncing off the walls of thoughts feelings and emotions.

If You've ever wondered whether meditation as a practice might be for you, think about how often, in practice or in performance competition, do you find yourself thinking about a recent meal, a recent social interaction, or an upcoming deadline, during the performance or the competition, that has nothing to do with that. That kind of ping-ponging around of thoughts feelings and emotions, if all we're ever doing is chasing those ping-pong kind of ideas, like snatching at that, it pulls back from our ability to engage in the moment; to detect changes that might be useful for either game plan execution or pivoting towards new advantageous responses.

So with the question of how does meditation help, it primarily helps by building our ability to have those ping-ponging thoughts and yet stay right here and right now and in the moment.

One of the things that was strongly demonstrated in the psychological research when we were primarily advocating for controlling thoughts, was that's not actually possible. It's not possible in the sense of like you can't think about tomorrow's deadline and then be like nope stop thinking about that. As soon as you tell yourself “stop thinking about the thing” you're gonna think about the thing. This is what we call ironic backlash or the white bear effect.

Between 80s and 90s, the this became so prevalent in control paradigm psychological coaching that a new wave of psychology around an acceptance paradigm showed up. In the acceptance paradigm, we say those thoughts, those feelings, those emotions, the thinking of the upcoming deadline… that's gonna happen because the deadline is important. Or that interaction with somebody, … your friend or your partner or whoever it is. That's important to you. So, you're gonna have those thoughts. So now it's not a matter of not having those thoughts, but a matter of accepting those thoughts and still being here so the amount of energy and time and bandwidth that those thoughts take up is minimized.

This kind of relates the last part of the question, of suggesting meditation for relaxation in many controlled paradigm psychological skills training (PST). [PST Practitioners] advocate for meditation as a relaxing practice. That's not the primary outcome that I would recommend. Different people respond to relaxation differently. Many people enjoy it, many people hate it. And there's no guarantee that just because you're relaxed, you're going to perform well. For some people it tends to be just the opposite way, when they're relaxed, they perform quite poorly. So instead of focusing on relaxation as a precursor to performance, working on building the skills to be present during the performance, to attend to the changes, and to engage with our thoughts and feelings and emotions in a constructive way, is the primary goal of meditation from the acceptance paradigm of psychological skills and performance.