Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement

This book is a comprehensive resource on the history, theory, and practice of mindfulness in sport. The authors present their empirically-supported, six-session mindfulness program adapted for specific athletic populations.

Mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Mindfulness Acceptance Commitment (MAC) are gaining momentum with sport psychology practitioners who work to support elite athletes. These acceptance-based, or third wave, cognitive behavioral approaches in sport psychology highlight that thought suppression and control techniques can trigger a metacognitive scanning process, and that excessive cognitive activity and task-irrelevant focus (self-focused attention such as trying to change thoughts) disrupts performance. Using this perspective, the aim of sport psychology interventions is not to help the athletes engage in the futile task of managing and controlling internal life. Rather, it suggests that sport psychology practitioners should work to increase athletes’ willingness to accept negative thoughts and emotions in pursuit of valued ends. Key aspects of such interventions include: teaching athletes to open up and accept, teaching athletes to mindfully engage in the present moment, and helping athletes formulate the values and engage in committed actions towards these values. The goal of Mindfulness and Acceptance in Sport: How to Help Athletes Perform and Thrive under Pressure then is to provide students, researchers, practitioners, and coaches of sport psychology with practical guidance for implementing mindfulness and acceptance approaches in their work with athletes. This book brings together highly experienced practitioners and shares their working methods, exercises, and cases to inspire the sport psychology profession.

Incorporating the theoretical conceptualizations of Jon Kabat-Zinn and Ellen Langer, this volume illustrates how performers from a variety of disciplines - including sport, dance and music - can use mindfulness to achieve peak performance and improve personal well-being. Leading scholars in the field present cutting-edge research and outline their unique approach to mindfulness that is supported by both theory and practice. They provide an overview of current mindfulness-based manuals and programs used around the globe in countries such as the United States, China and Australia, exploring their effectiveness across cultures. Mindfulness and Performance will be a beneficial reference for practitioners, social and sport psychologists, coaches, athletes, teachers and students.

The MAC approach developed by connecting the more traditional scientific knowledge base on human performance and self-regulation to more contemporary findings to do with meta-cognitive processes, emotion regulation, and acceptance-based behavioral interventions. Written by the originators of the MAC model, this book will provide both the necessary theory, empirical background, and a structured step-by-step, easy-to-use protocol for the understanding, assessment, conceptualization, and enhancement of human performance. It is a protocol that can be readily adapted for a wide variety of high-performing clientele--from athletes and business people, to sales people, professionals in a variety of fields, and emergency/military personnel. The material can be integrated by practicing clinicians as an adjunctive intervention strategy to help clients with specific performance problems. Numerous case examples, forms, handouts, in- and out-of-session assignments and activities, and verbatim client instructions are included.

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness brings together the latest multi-disciplinary research on mindfulness from a group of international scholars: Examines the origins and key theories of the two dominant Western approaches to mindfulness Compares, contrasts, and integrates insights from the social psychological and Eastern-derived perspectives Discusses the implications for mindfulness across a range of fields, including consciousness and cognition, education, creativity, leadership and organizational behavior, law, medical practice and therapy, well-being, and sports 2 Volumes

Find flow and reach peak performance—in sports and in life. Based on the groundbreaking Still Quiet Place mindfulness program, this workbook provides practical, step-by-step exercises and skills to help you gain present-moment awareness and achieve your athletic goals. Are you looking for unique ways to "get into the game"? To enhance your training and find focus? You aren’t alone. Increasingly, athletes and coaches—from amateur leagues to professional football champs to Olympic athletes—are incorporating mindfulness practices into their training. That’s because mindfulness can help you lower your stress levels, connect with the moment, and mentally bounce back after setbacks. So whether you're a sports enthusiast or a professional athlete, mindfulness can also help you deal with physical aspects of training, such as fatigue, aches, pains, injury, burnout, and exhaustion. Written by holistic physician, mindfulness coach, and long-time athlete Amy Saltzman, this practical workbook offers mindfulness-based skills you can use any time throughout your athletic career, as well as in daily life. You’ll discover what the author fondly refers to as the “still quiet place,” and from the vantage point of that stillness, you’ll be able to observe your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations—before and during practice and competition, between events, after a miss or significant loss, or exhilarating win. You’ll also find skills for dealing effectively with teammates and coaches, as well as skills for coaching mindfully. A parents guide is also included. No matter what sport you play, 90 percent of performance is mental. With this workbook as your guide, you can use mindfulness to enhance your training, competitive performance, and your life beyond athletics.

Handbook of Mindfulness-Based Programmes: Mindfulness Interventions from Education to Health and Therapy offers the first comprehensive guide to all prominent, evidence-based mindfulness programmes available in the West. The rapid growth of mindfulness in the Western world has given rise to an unprecedented wave of creative mindfulness programmes, offering tailor-made mindfulness practices for school teachers, students, parents, nurses, yoga teachers, athletes, pregnant women, therapists, care-takers, coaches, organisational leaders and lawyers. This book offers an in-depth engagement with these different programmes, emphasising not only the theory and research but also the practice. Exercises and activities are provided to enable the reader to first understand the programme and then experience its unique approach and benefits. Handbook of Mindfulness-Based Programmes will enrich your knowledge and experience of mindfulness practice, whether you are a practitioner, researcher or simply interested in the application of mindfulness.

This book offers both sport psychology practitioners and sport athletes a clear understanding of mindfulness to help athletes optimize sport performance. It provides a clear insight how sport athletes can learn to increase their ability to concentrate, be fully present during high pressure competition and how to effectively respond to distracting thoughts and emotions (e.g. performance anxiety; dread). The strategies offered in the chapters are based on Mindfulness Meditation Training for Sport (MMTS), an empirically supported mindfulness intervention for sport, which was created by the authors. MMTS has been adopted internationally by practicing sport psychologists – used with collegiate, club, and Olympic teams. Through offering a clear explanation of mindfulness and self-compassion (an essential element of MMTS), brief mindfulness based practices, and consistently offering how such practices link to performance – the reader learns to implement all of MMTS or elements of MMTS to help the increase their ability to focus, cope with difficult emotions, and perform their best when it matters.