posted on: February 15, 2013
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.
When athletes are in the “zone”, there are certain thoughts, emotions and physical indicators that are common to being in this state. Examples are complete focus, low anxiety, high confidence, energetic, fun, and the feeling of being in complete control. When I work with groups or teams on defining these characteristics of the zone, usually one person in the crowd will mention a specific item that I think is tremendously important, but often overlooked: a quiet mind.
What do I mean by a quiet mind? When we are performing our best, everything we do feels automatic. Our body is executing flawlessly and our minds aren’t getting in the way with a lot of extraneous thoughts. The messages in our self talk are simple and motivational. There’s no high level strategic thinking going on because it’s not needed. The mind is essentially “quiet”.
This characteristic of the zone has actually been proven in scientific work. From an article in New Scientist magazine, soldiers being trained for military combat were connected to a battery with electrodes on the forearm and at the temple. The point of the experiment was to induce a state in which a test subject could learn a skill faster by passing an electrical current through the brain. Not only did the soldiers learn their skills faster (up to 2.5 times faster), but as a result of this, the test subjects went into the zone, and scientists noticed that the amount of activity in the frontal lobe of the neocortex was minimal. The frontal lobe is the part of our brains that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is where all of our complex thinking activities occur and since this area was “quiet” we know that the individual being trained with the electrical current wasn’t using higher level thinking. He was simply letting his body do the activity.
As competitors, we are often not in the zone. So how does knowing that a quiet mind is part of the zone help us get there when we are struggling? Think about keeping your self talk simple and positive so that you can begin to reduce the complex and often unproductive thoughts going through your head. Emotions and frustration will also engage the thought processes in your frontal lobe and will take you away from where you want to go. Relax and take deep breaths. Focus on your breath. Let your body do what it has been trained to do. If you trust your abilities, you’ll be able to do this more easily than the competitor who’s struggling with confidence. Relaxing your body will relax your mind. If you can master the skill of connecting your mind and body, you’ll find yourself in the zone more and more often when you’re competing under pressure. That’s where we want to be and that’s mental toughness!
Dr. Brian Lomax founded PerformanceXtra™ in 2009 with a mission of helping athletes achieve their goals and their top performances more consistently through a progression of mental skills that enables them to focus on what is truly important.
Learn more about the author: https://performancextra.com/brian-lomax/
Brian – nice piece. Wonder if you are familiar with Michael Clarkson who wrote competitive fire – interesting insights into benefits of varying arousal levels, another is “How we decide” by Jonah Lehrer – some great examples of life death situations and how the quiet mind saved lives….
Would love to connect by phone – have an idea re: longwood I want to run by you and also, I am in the market for updating my very old website and thought you might be able to help shorten the learning curve