The Power of Mindfulness

Book excerpt: 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.