Visualization has repeatedly been shown to improve performance and increase the likelihood of achieving one’s dreams and goals. Visualization is a mental skill technique in which people see or form a mental image of themselves performing a skill or achieving a certain level of success. In Harvey Mackay’s article, “See it, believe it: Success starts in the mind’s eye”, Mackay emphasizes the importance of incorporating visualization into your life and the powerful effect it can have on the attainment of your goals. The article discusses how Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey, and Olympic athletes use visualization to assist them in reaching their dreams. He cites a research study conducted in Russia that […]

The New York Times published a great piece yesterday on mental health and athletics. The article, “With No One Looking, a Hurt Stays Hidden”, contrasts the obvious nature of physical injuries for athletes with the more hidden nature, and stigma, surrounding mental health issues in the world of sports. Mental health issues for athletes are too often hidden away and masked from view, despite the incredible toll they can take. Giving mental health issues more open discussion and publicity is one of the first steps to starting to try to address the problem in a more significant way. As this article points out, concussions and traumatic brain injuries in sport have […]

Yes, it’s been a hard football watching season for Minnesota Vikings fans. Why couldn’t this team turn it around and win more than 3 games? This week’s Star Tribune Exit Interviews article ponders this question. Several players chime in, but linebacker Chad Greenway explains the disappointing season well. “To me, I think the biggest thing was the way this season started.  Those first three games. The way we lost them sort of creates the negative momentum, the negative mentality. Winning and losing is a culture. I think when you create that early on, you create a bad culture about, in your mind, can we do this? Can we not do […]

This blog post is Part 4 of a 4-part blog series featuring the work of University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock. Even a small chunk of meditation practice goes a long way, says Sian Beilock, Ph.D., in a recent interview on the website Brain Science Podcast. At the University of Chicago’s Human Performance Lab, psychologist Sian Beilock has found that simple meditation instruction helps people perform better under pressure. In the lab, people underwent a mere 10 minutes of meditation instruction before taking a test. This appeared to make a significant “difference in their score.” Beilock quotes research that shows “as little as 10 hours of meditative practice can change […]

This blog post is Part 3 of a 4-part blog series featuring the work of University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock. In the previous two blog posts featuring the Sian Beilock interview on the website Brain Science Podcast, we’ve been talking about what choking is and the science behind the phenomena. At the University of Chicago’s Human Performance Lab, psychologist Sian Beilock, Ph.D., has studied how people can avoid choking and perform to their best ability in stressful situations. These tips work on your favorite playing field and in the boardroom at work. To perform well, our working memory needs to be functioning well. So this advice builds “your ability […]

This blog post is Part 2 of a 4-part blog series featuring the work of University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock. Have you ever wondered why you choke sometimes even though you have executed the same athletic maneuver perfectly literally hundreds of times? You can find an answer to this question on a recent Brain Science Podcast. Ginger Campbell, MD, interviews University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock, PhD, author of the book Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To. Beilock notes that a stressful situation for one person is not trying for another person. All you need for a suboptimal performance […]