Never underestimate the power of our thoughts. Coach Bob Knight said that basketball is a game where the mental is to the physical four to one. You can only be as good as you believe you are.
One approach is to divide the head game into elements of confidence building and stress reduction.
Weisinger and Pawliw-Fry wrote Performing Under Pressure which points out that pressure degrades performance and those who perform best have the least degraded performance.
Confidence building exercises:
1) Affirmations. Think back to this scene from The Help.
Expectations develop from a young age.
In Ten-Minute Toughness, Jason Selk includes breathing, affirmations, and visualization. The simplest form of breathing exercise is "square breathing" with four seconds of inhalation, hold, exhalation, and hold.
His affirmations are an identity and a performance statement. Identity, "I am an experienced and aggressively prepared player." Performance, "I bring energy and attacking to both ends of the court."
Visualization. Imagine yourself performing the skills needed in your daily work. Selk advises creating a "highlight reel" of your best moments available for replay. Think back to when family, a teacher, or coach told you, "I believe in you."
Video review. You can do more than imagine. Replay actual video of your highlights. See both what worked and why it worked.
Mindfulness training. Mindfulness has multiple physiologic, anatomic, and psychological effects. It increases focus, decreases depression and anxiety, and reduces stress hormones. MRI studies show that it builds brain in the learning and memory centers and reduces brain in the amygdala, the anger center.
Body positioning. In some studies, short-term expansive body positions have been shown to increase testosterone levels and decrease stress hormones. "Make yourself big."
Stress Reduction.
Some of the above like mindfulness, body positioning, and breathing exercises serve multiple functions.
But this wouldn't work. Who would even consider it?
LeBron James would...and does.
Stress balls work.
Music. Music can amp us up or calm us down. Rossini, in The William Tell Overture, shares music that does both. Start at 0:58.
