An Interview with Sports Hypnotist Steve Mycoe.

1- What is Sports Hypnosis and how can an athlete incorporate it into his training routine?

Hypnosis is not as mysterious as some sports people imagine, in fact most top athletes already use it in some form or another. Of those who use a professional sports hypnotist many don’t admit to it publically as they often worry it might be viewed as cheating. They feel they have not ‘done it’ themselves if they receive mental training from a hypnotist. But the truth is it is no different than getting physical advice from a sports scientist.
Hypnosis is an altered level of consciousness from ones usual everyday state. Because all athletes are individuals and have different natural levels of consciousness, hypnosis is a different experience for everyone. Having said this, there are clear physical signs that a therapist looks for and specific brain wave activity that indicates a hypnotic state.
Hypnosis created in a therapy setting is not the same as ‘active-alert hypnosis’ that a sports person might access during play. Within therapy many hypnotherapists will use a ‘progressive relaxation’ induction to induce body and mental relaxation often reducing brain wave activity from ones normal level of consciousness known as ‘Beta’ level, through to the three next levels of activity ‘Alpha, Theta and Delta’. Each resembling a deeper level of ‘sleep’ as the next.
Conversely ‘Active alert hypnosis’ utilizes an induction technique that is almost the opposite to a progressive relaxation hypnotic induction. Conventional hypnosis relaxes your body to access and make changes to the unconscious part of the brain, the part of the brain where our behaviours are based. Active alert hypnosis uses dynamic, motivational self-talk to engage the athlete in the moment and increase their emotional arousal level which alters their brain frequency into the Mid-Alpha range, this range of electrical frequency is associated with expertise in many sports.*1
The best way for an athlete to use hypnosis is to start by visiting a trained Sports Hypnotist (Hetero-hypnosis) so that they can experience hypnosis themselves in order to understand more about the structure of a hypnotic session and to begin to understand how they feel ‘in trance’. The next stage would be to learn how to induce hypnosis in them self often referred to as self-hypnosis.
Much of the state change within sports people is due to ‘behavioural triggers’ that have been set-up either by a hypnotherapist or from years of training and sometimes a highly charged emotional experience might set a trigger response, phobias and fears of injury are a common example.

2 – Many famous athletes such as Frank Bruno, Tiger Woods, Muhammed Ali and Iwan Thomas are know for using sports hypnosis. Can you tell us why sports hypnosis is still not main stream in the sports arena?
There are many athletes and coaches who employ the services of a sports hypnotist. Unfortunately as is the case with my work, consultation is confidential and many high profile athletes and teams don’t want the public or specifically their competition knowing they use the techniques!
One recent Golfer who benefited greatly from hypnosis and was happy to ‘go public’ was South African Golfer Louis Oosthuizen, who won at St Andrews in Scotland after using hypnotic techniques.
A hypnotherapist set up a ‘trigger’ to instigate a specific state when he looked at a red spot painted on his golfing glove *2. The red dot would activate the trigger in his mind, enabling him to block out any distractions and execute the perfect golf shot.

3 – Some say that an athletes ability to turn off the left part of our brain enables them to focus more clearly on their sports in real time due to the reduction in conscious dialogue. Does hypnosis help an athlete to develop this part of his game?
The right-brain left-brain dichotomy is somewhat out dated today. It is of use in understanding some aspects of brain function however, the two sides of the brain work in unison. The Corpus Callosum connects the two hemispheres allowing them to communicate. There is therefore, little consistent support for functional differences in brain hemispheres*3. Having said that, generally the left hemisphere is responsible for analytical thought and logic, aspects that many athletes need to subdued in order to perform well. But we need to remind ourselves that the brain has plasticity and certain aspects of function will and can, take over another function should situations dictate.
In todays world of technology, we now have better ways of understanding the brain and consciousness. We know for instance that when an athlete visualizes at a deep level such as in hypnosis, all the parts of the brain that are activated during physical activity are activated in the same way. In fact, real physical neuro connections are made just as if the sports person was actually participating in their sport. The only difference is that the Inferior frontal cortex re-routes the electrical impulses so that the message is not sent to the body via the peripheral nervous system (the spinal cord) but ‘loops’ around the brain consequently, our physical bodies do not move but our brains are working at full speed and building perfect sports behaviour.

4 – It is common knowledge that professional athletes use hypnosis for many reasons but, has sports hypnosis much use for the amateur who is yet to peak in their performance?
Hypnosis or deep levels of visualization is essential for new athletes in order to build good technique before they actually do it physically! The benefits are enormous especially if you partake in an event that has gravity involved to a large degree, such as gymnastics or high board diving. You can not ‘practice’ high board diving maneuvers slowly! You can not turn gravity off so you can go thorough the motions slowly. The only other way to train your brain is to use sports hypnosis! This way the athlete can build real physical neuro connections in the brain (motor cortex) and in some cases expand the brains motor map that enables the athlete to gain the skills required, until they become expert.
The main part of the brain responsible for this development is the Motor Cortex the part of the brain that controls muscular activity. Before you can catch a high speed cricket ball for example, the neurons in your motor cortex have to activate and send a command to the muscle to move. The more often you do this the better you become at catching. If you want to become an excellent cricketer you need to practice catching perfectly, without faults. This isn’t always possible in real life. This is where Sports Hypnosis comes in. As already stated when using hypnosis or visualisation at a deep level the brain has the ability to temporarily ‘divert the signal’ away from the muscles and ‘loop’ the circuit around the brain. We can then activate the mind to perform perfectly in a given situation without actually physically doing it, but the brain does not know the difference between actually doing it and visualizing – the same brain areas are activated. Once we have built the ‘physical’ neuro pathways in the brain to perform perfectly, then we can go out and do it for ‘real’ having already set up the mental framework to support our physical beings. What many people fail to realize is that Visualisation is real, thoughts are real. Thoughts are electrical impulses that build real physical neuro pathways. These can either assist us in our lives or hinder us depending on if you choose to harness their power.
The reason ‘Sports Hypnosis’ is so powerful is because it activates both the Motor Cortexes which we have already mentioned and the Reticular Activating System. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a part of the brain that is very important for the young athlete to develop in order to set down the foundations for good performance in the future. The RAS is a part of the Brain Stem that acts as an ‘Automatic Goal Seeking device’! If we program it correctly it guides us towards the circumstances that allow us to achieve our ambitions.
The RAS is akin to a junction box that filters external environmental factors that influence our internal thoughts, feelings and actions. It is responsible for the lifestyles that we have and our desires for the future. If we don’t deliberately program this system to focus on the goals that we crave our achievements might be haphazard and we might never attain our goals.

5 – One aspect that you can literally ‘see’ in Olympic athletes is their intense focus when competing. Can amateur athletes rapidly gain this ability?
Focus is the key to many sports particularly endurance sports where pain is involved. We know as psychologists that a large aspect of pain is based on emotion. We can change our moods and emotion by the focus we have and the ‘self-talk’ that we give ourselves. If you are a time trial cyclist and hit a mountain climb, thinking to your self ‘oh no I hate mountains’ or if you focus on the pain in your thigh muscles your body will react by increasing the pain. If you focus on the opportunity to ‘beat the mountain’ or ‘leave your opponents behind’ during this tough element then your body will often find the resources to assist you in your quest. Good endurance athletes relish the tough times – it gives them a sense of purpose and when they over come the obstacle they congratulate themselves. It is a different motivational view point. When you decide to enjoy the moment and focus on a positive motivation, pain becomes your ally.
Attention is an aspect of focus which is crucial in sports where the activity requires reactions that are quicker than consciousness, such as in archery. This is where a new development of Hypnotic application which we have already mentioned is very effective – ‘Active Alert Hypnosis’. It is something that I train Archers in and I have a CD set that specifically develops this technique.
Active alert hypnosis focuses an athletes attention enabling them to ‘get in the zone’ quickly during play. By using self-talk the shooter is able to cut out enough conscious analysis of technique to enable better focus.
This is important because in many sports, certain physical maneuvers are too quick for consciousness. In other words if you think about reacting you are already too late! The action needs to be ‘pre-programmed’ by training both physically and mentally. Once that has been achieved you need to instigate the initial preprogrammed physical actions of the sport and the rest will execute automatically. Becoming so focused that you just let your unconscious mind do the reacting! This is a Hypnotic state.
The human consciousness has limits. In many sports a reduction in conscious analysis (thinking) of physical movement allows more mental resources for the activity of focusing.

6 – Sports people often claim they were ‘In the Zone’ following a perfect performance. Can hypnosis re-create this state?
Absolutely. Practicing ‘getting into the zone’ and anchoring this state will allow an athlete to replicate the state over and over again.
Under hypnosis perceptions are modified, time distorts and many preprogrammed behaviours become automatic. Any sports behavior that is pre-programmed to be automatic and is triggered unconsciously without conscious analysis will be perceived by the athlete as being ‘in the zone’.

7 - Some athletes they have some sort of altered ‘gaze’ when they perform well. Does something unusual happen to a person in this condition?
These people are using a self hypnotic induction of gazing. They are cutting out conscious analyses that we’ve already seen interferes with performance hence, accessing a more appropriate brain frequency for performance enhancement. It depends on the specific sport which level of arousal is appropriate for performance enhancement. A weightlifter won’t want to access the same emotional arousal levels as the biathlete getting ready to shoot his rifle!

8 – What’s the future of sports hypnosis?
The more technology develops the greater our understanding of how hypnosis works. In the last ten years we have leaped forwards dramatically from Psychologists thinking hypnosis was a type of ‘social compliance’ to one where brain scanning has confirmed real physical changes, changes that a growing number of psychologists want to be involved. More and more research psychologists who used to ignore hypnosis in favour of visualization have discovered that if they spend more of their time learning and practicing hypnosis the results that they can produce can equal that of a full time sports hypnotist.
In the last fifteen years I have seen the Sports Hypnosis industry explode from the late 1990’s where almost everyone asked me what Sports Hypnosis was to today where almost every professional sports person has benefited from it.

Steve Mycoe BA(Hons) Dhp

References;
*1 - Robazza, C. & Bortoli, L. (1998). Mental preparation strategies of Olympic archers during competition: an exploratory investigation. High Ability Studies, 9, 219-235.
*2 - Louis kept his head by seeing red, By Liam Kelly, Wednesday July 21 2010.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/golf/louis-kept-his-head-by-seeing-red-2...
*3 - Toga AW, Thompson PM. (2003). Mapping brain asymmetry. Nat Rev Neuroscience. 4(1):37–48.PubMed