Conciousness

In practical terms, meditation allows one to block out distractions and focus...invaluable to any athlete.

 

Scrap, you're right. Simply put, the effects of stress are phenomenal and I have seen figures stating that 90% of Dr. visits are stress related in some way. Persons who meditate can mimic the physiological effects of taking Benzodiazopenes(Xanax, Ativan, etc.). So many things which go adversely wrong in us is due to stress, in our daily life and sports performance.

In addition, in this growing age of technology(cell phones, facebook, and so forth) we are accessible at almost every moment. This is simply unhealthy on many levels. At any moment we can turn on the TV and see about the latest crash that killed 1000s, the killer on the loose, TV violence, etc. We do not realize the profound effect that these mild stressors have over time on our psyche, physical health, mental capacity. I liken it to being in a 12 round fight and being jabbed over and over.

Anyways, I went into this soapbox because meditating on so many levels is healthy, not only sports psychology/therapy.

Funny you bring this up, I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and have a private practice, and was going to go into Sports Psychology(the LPC is much more lucrative where I live). Anyways, meditation, self talk, changing cognitions, and other relaxation techniques are, as Son of Gaul said, I feel "priceless" to an athlete. Great question. Now lets see how by page 3 or so this turns into a good old fashioned internet war that is miles away from your original question.

 

How often/long do you guys recommend a boxer do meditation/relaxation techniques? I've only meditated once in my life (in a kinesiology class), but it seemed like it had potential to be really useful. Felt awesome the whole rest of the day lol

 

Von can u tell me more??

 

Okay guys, this is what I got off the top of my head. Consciousness has several different meanings. Let me talk about meditation and belief systems.

Here is my take on meditation. I think the biggest thing that it does is it increases our own awareness, and helps to bridge the mind/body link.
The standard view of meditation, in which one is in a quiet place, sits criss cross, closes eyes, etc. is very beneficial.

There is a Gestalt technique called Vipassana meditation, where you give full mindfulness to everything that you do. For example, "I am going to get the glass of water, I feel the ball of my foot making contact with the floor, now my heel," etc as one takes the first step toward the water. It is painfully slow and can take upwards of 15 minutes to get that glass of water, but is again designed to develop a more heightened sense of awareness and "oneness" if you will not with getting a glass of water, but with oneself. Whether you are doing a standard type of meditation or this, doing it daily will have great benefits.

This one I have the most knowledge about, which is our level of cognitive awareness. Our cognition or belief system is another level of consciousness that deals with our self. Often times we don't realize that our self talk or belief system about an event often reflects everything about how we feel. For example, two people can get stuck in traffic, and one can be calm about it and the other gets irritable, takes it personally, etc. So as we see, two people, same situations, different outcomes. It is not the event that causes the emotions, but the thought process/cognitive perception. The one who is agitated may say things such as "this always happens to me," "I'm gonna be late, then I'm gonna get yelled at, then..."
An individual who is calm may say things such as "no big deal," "It's something I can't control" etc. As we can see, a deeper level of consciousness or understanding of ones thoughts and ability to normalize or rationalize them effect our emotion.

If we think about anxiety/stress, our minds race, we don't think, and the key word is control(lack of). Meditation places us completely in control of our breathing, thinking, so forth.

Now, transfer that to a sport such as boxing. The meditation portion of it can be useful overall to have a greater awareness and ability to be calm, avoid stress, etc. Of course, this is a very important skill to develop in a situation where one is being constantly placed under stress(being punched, punching, hurting, being tired, etc.) I believe that traditional meditation, 5 minutes per day, can be very beneficial.

As far as cognition for boxing, think about Cus D'amoto's statement to Mike Tyson. There is no difference between a hero and coward except the hero accepts fear and faces it(I know that is not completely accurate but you guys get the point). What an incredibly powerful belief system that was implemented in young Mike Tyson's head at an early age. I think about myself the first time I started sparring. I was in good shape, but could do only 3 rounds because I was so tense. My body was tense because my mind was afraid. The core belief system was "I'm scared to get hit, I don't know what will happen," "I'm going to get hurt," etc. As I exposed myself to this stress and MENTALLY adapted to it, I changed my cognition to "I'm okay" "that shot will only hurt a few more seconds" etc. Now, it doesn't take me very long to recognize when I am holding tension, and I will literally say this to myself, then say, "relax, your okay." "let the training take over and just do what you were trained to." Now I can do 7-9 rounds at the same pace, and level of conditioning. My thoughts/beliefs about the event change, and a deeper level of consciousness about it developed.

Cognitions change often in sports and if one cannot recognize this fully, then hitting slumps, loss streaks, etc. develops. Karo Parisiyan in MMA was one of the best fighters in the world, but began suffering from panic attacks. Something happened that made him perceive fighting as paralyzing, and his performance suffered greatly.

I hope this made sense to all and helped explain consciousness in practical, applicable terms. So in summation, meditating, paying attention to our self talk our very valuable in sports therapy. One to Several times daily, 5-10 minutes daily can have great effects on performance, in life as well as sports. A deeper level of awareness on the messages we are telling ourselves can help us improve or fail in performance. Let me know what you think guys.

 

No way, they are all inner signals/conflicts. The idea is the more we can bring them to consciousness, the better we can be at coping/fixing/etc. That is why I discussed the traffic jam scenario. It is not the outer stressor of the traffic jam, but the inner conflict that causes the emotions.

We may both be saying the same thing, just different verbage. Or, I simply may be misunderstanding. It can be difficult to decipher these things via the message board, and am unsure of the smilie. Let me know what you mean by that Scrap.

 

:tired

 

thank you von and scrap one of the most interesting threads iv read for a long time