In my first blog I discussed the importance of quietening your conscious mind on the field to allow your subconscious mind to take over and enable you to execute skills and techniques you have learned.
There are many techniques you can use to assist with your mental clarity in football games. These techniques fit into two categories. Category one contains general techniques you can use that will help you quieten your conscious mind. Category two contains specific techniques to use in game situations.
1. General Techniques for Mental Clarity
These general techniques should be practised daily and the benefits will flow through all areas of your life. These techniques allow you to quieten the ‘mad monkey’ – that incessant noise and self-talk that flows through your mind almost constantly everyday. This form of ‘thinking’ is a learned behaviour and pattern that can be changed to allow periods of absolute mental clarity.
Meditation – I’m convinced meditation is the single most important skill anyone can learn. Gone are the days of meditation being thought of as something only for monks in mountain caves or hippies sitting under trees. Successful people in all walks of life attest to the benefits meditation has on their life. Science has finally caught up and proven numerous benefits of meditation, including increased mental clarity, improved moods, significant increase in energy, healthier body and improved sleep, just to name a few. There are so many different forms of meditation and I’ll discuss these in future articles. For now, sitting quietly for five minutes a day and just focusing on your breathing is a great start.
Food – most modern commentary on food is limited to the impact on our bodies. However, the food we eat has as big an impact (if not bigger) on our brain and our mind. If you have a spare moment, I can highly recommend a book titled Grain Brain (thanks for the recommendation, Brad) that details the damage we are doing to our brains with our modern processed food diet. The scientific findings detailed in this book are scary. The food you eat has a direct impact on your brain and therefore your mind, so eat as naturally as possible. I also highly recommend mindful eating – paying attention to what you are eating by focusing on the smells, colours and taste of every mouthful.
Sleep – this one is pretty obvious, as we all have experienced how we feel after a poor night’s sleep. We are ‘foggy brained’, lethargic and have difficulty focusing. To ensure mental clarity you need a consistent sleeping pattern every night getting the amount of sleep that works for you – generally around eight hours.
2. Specific Techniques to Clear Your Mind
The specific technique I recommend is a trigger technique using NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) principles. The aim of this technique is to wire your brain in a way that the trigger automatically clears your mind.
The trigger I recommend is clicking your fingers on one hand – it’s easy to do in almost any situation, which makes it highly effective.
The most important part of this technique is repetition. To wire the brain effectively you need to repeat the practice enough times to build the neural networks to achieve the outcome you desire.
To begin the practice, find a quiet space and sit in a comfortable position. Focus on becoming conscious of your thoughts. When thoughts start to arise, take a deep breath and clear your mind. As soon as the thoughts disappear, click your fingers. Repeat this process for five minutes (breathe deeply, clear your mind, click your fingers). When you first start practising it won’t take long for more thoughts to arise. You will find with repeated practice that the gap between using your trigger and new thoughts arising starts to get longer.
This technique is wiring your brain to associate clicking your fingers with having a quiet, clear mind.
The great news is that this technique can be practised at any time. Anytime you notice your mind chattering through the day, use your trigger to clear your mind. This can be sitting in a classroom, while you are in the car or even walking through the shops. Remember – the more you practise, the stronger the neural pathways become, and the more effective you become at maintaining a clear mind.
Once you have wired your brain the fun begins. Imagine beating the last defender and as you are about to go one-on-one with the keeper you start thinking about your shot on goal. With a click of your fingers you clear your mind and CRACK, slot the ball into the top corner – GOALLLLLLLLLLL!
Have fun practising!
Love reading the IFS blogs, great insight, i have heard of used this technique..it does work.
Thanks
Brilliant blog.