NEUROPTIMAL ADVANCE BRAIN TRAINING
THE NEW NEUROFEEDBACK
“People talk about our improvement this season, but you could also ask why we went from being champions by eight points to finishing tenth last season. It’s not just a case of last year we were so s**t, this year we’re so good. We were always a good team, but after winning the championship our mentality dropped. We maybe thought that everything was easy, but in the Premier League there are no easy games. We lacked intensity at the start and it was hard to pull out of it.” - Thibout Courtois
Improving Confidence
When you are preparing for your event, do you struggle with self-doubt? Do you wish your confidence was always high? Maybe you’ve tried “positive affirmations”, fighting your doubting thoughts by telling yourself you’re awesome or you’ll be successful.
Now, based on research by Joanne Wood and her colleagues (2009), repeating positive affirmations may mildly benefit people who already have high self-esteem by making them feel slightly better. But those with lower self-esteem who practiced positive self-statements, their moods actually worsened. Thus when positive affirmations are not congruent with our self-perception, our minds automatically come up with all sorts of evidence of how these positive thoughts aren’t true and by doing so, our original self-perception becomes stronger.
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As it turns out, confidence and positive thinking tends to come AFTER you take action, NOT BEFORE. You can self-talk yourself all you want but this is unproductive if you have not put in that hard work before your competition. You build confidence when you have fully prepared yourself during training - you are physically, mentally and technically; you are at your best. You have a competition routine; you are not distracted by logistical issues going to/ returning from the competition venue, interview request from the press and accommodating the wishes of close relatives and fans. You can add to this list about knowing who your opponent is and their strengths and weaknesses too.
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Now it is natural that you will (still) have self-doubt. It is only human. But this self-doubt is not the paralysis or negative type. This self-doubt is not like the type of sitting for an examination and you have missed out a few chapters from the syllabus. It is just the way our brains have been hard-wired from the times of our ancestors who had to hunt for food and protect him and the family from threats. So some self-doubt is good because it motivates you to avoid danger and improve. It also ensures that you don't underestimate your competition or expect that things can be a little bit more tough than expected. This ensures that you are not under prepared or underestimate your opponent.
Performing Under Pressure
Are you struggling to perform under pressure? Maybe you’re a professional athlete performing worse during competition than during practice. Or an entrepreneur whose pitches to investors are hampered by nerves. You’ve worked hard to prepare for this performance but somehow you "choked".
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Taking deep breaths before these big occasions or "thinking positively" are strategies that you have tried but it didn't help you much. It becomes a big negative for you in this state when it interferes with what you had planned to do for this big moment.
​It is important that you take a step back from this negative state. Just remind yourself that when performing under pressure it is NORMAL to feel anxious. The most important thing for you to realise in such situations is NOT to allow this feeling to overwhelm and straight-jacket you. You need to control your mind-talk and tell yourself that some moderate level of anxiety is fine.
This moderate level of anxiety also known as activation helps you to perform to your best. If there was no anxiety/activation then this would be detrimental to your performance. You are making a cold start to your performance even though you may have warmed-up in the warm-up area or call room. So keep your activation levels up and not the negative anxiety state as you prepare for your turn to perform. Indeed you can train your brain to be in the moment and make your state of anxiety/activation your friend in any high-pressure situation.
Being Resilient
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a poor performance or a detrimental mistake, is crucial to an athlete’s success. Resilience in turn helps build endurance. This is the ability to handle pain and still perform. It is important to recognize that mistakes and failure are part of the game. However, when an athlete places too much emphasis on his or her failures, performance begins to suffer. Performance errors may cause an athlete to lose control of their emotions as well as diminish their confidence. The whirlwind of negative emotions coupled with reduced confidence only leads to more errors and further deterioration of performance. You may have realised this - beating yourself up in your mind, keep repeating and going over and over your mistake as part of brain chatter - and you struggle to step yourself out of this negativity.
How can you as an athlete become resilient?
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Have a positive outlook, control your thoughts (yup do neurofeedback training, to be calm, focused)
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Do not succumb to pressure, worry about, or get caught up on what others think (the process will take care of the outcome/results)
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Be totally passionate about your sport, your event discipline (raise your technical skills to the highest level, be physically ready, keep to proper diet and recovery and sleep)
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Focus your energy on what you can control (visualize your game plan, routine, warm-up, cool-down, media interviews, pre-/post-event actions)
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Do not let setbacks affect your game (there is always another competition around the corner)
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See failure as something to learn and grow from in order to develop
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Be ready with a Plan B and Plan C (with your coach and/or team mates)
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Surround yourself with supportive and loving people (not judgemental types)
When the going gets tough, the Resilient gets Going