PSYCHOLOGY
1 OPTIMISING YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL PERFORMANCE PART
COHERENT BREATHING
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rticles and books aimed at enhancing your psychological performance, particularly within the field of sport psychology, have a tendency to be somewhat intangible. The reader is often left with ideas like “just breathe”, or “focus your mind”, or “visualise your success”, but they fail to teach you how to do this. The ironic thing within the field of psychology is that knowing is not enough; in fact, changing your psychology is a complex and difficult process, often broken down into catchy, intangible slogans, which brings us to this series. Over the next three articles, I will attempt to give you a practical understanding of scientifically sound psychological techniques, which can be used to enhance your
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performance. The articles will focus on coherent breathing, mindfulness, and mental imagery. You will be taught the important aspects of how to do them, why they work, and exactly how and when you can practically implement these to improve your riding performance. The series begins with an in-depth examination of controlled and intentional breathing, as this process will be incorporated into the other two techniques. The skills are not three separate skills, but they will be integrated into one another to provide one powerful psychological technique. The particularly prevalent breathing technique in this group is coherent breathing, and it is a sport-specific way of bringing balance to your nervous system.
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