Optimising your Psychological Performance

COHERENT BREATHING

Articles 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 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.

CONTROLLED AND INTENTIONAL BREATHING

Breath control is widely regarded as the fundamental technique of achieving relaxation. This holds true across disciplines, from yoga to clinical medicine and rehabilitation; controlled and intentional breathing has shown many benefits, often even more than expected. In an athletic setting, controlled breathing has been shown to be one of the most effective psychological techniques for performance enhancement, particularly considering how easy it is to do.

Breathing techniques have become formative practices in the field of sport psychology in an effort to control stress and anxiety and increase performance. Outside of formal scientific inquiry, breath-energy and breath control have existed cross-culturally for centuries; the Fijian Mana, the Zulu umoya, the Greek pneuma, and the Chinese Chi, are all examples of the breath-energy relationship in African, European, and Eastern cultures. Modern-day practice of breath control has shown continued scientific evidence that breathing is intimately linked with physiological and mental performance, and if harnessed correctly, can be a powerful tool.

COHERENT BREATHING

While breathing techniques are helpful for a wide range of situations, athletic competition is an incredibly unique space to navigate within the field of psychology and breath control. The main reason for this is that a state of relaxation is not ideal when you are competing, as a select amount of stress or at least arousal (meaning a general psychological and physiological activation) can be helpful. Thus, a fairly new technique has been developed specifically for the athletic context, known as coherent breathing.

Coherent breathing induced relaxation is different from other relaxation techniques in that instead of feeling completely relaxed (as you would with deep breathing to assist with insomnia), you achieve a feeling of inner calm and clarity. This is not dissimilar to the typical experience of meditation; in fact, the two go hand-in-hand quite comfortably (as we will see in next month’s HQ article, where we will be discussing mindfulness and sport performance). This inner-calm is a desired state in the field of sport psychology as it aids in decision-making, problem-solving and enhanced physical performance.

HOW IS IT DONE?

Coherent breathing has two fundamental aims that underlie the practice, these are:

• To relax the body and mind, and

• To regulate one’s breathing rate to about five breaths per minute by inhaling for 6 seconds and exhaling for 6 seconds.

To begin, sit upright and do not recline more than 45°; this is to initiate a balance in your autonomic nervous system (with practice, you can do this standing up). Take a few deep breaths into your stomach, stretching your diaphragm; this will allow you to breathe deeply and take in more oxygen. When you feel ready, start with a 6 second inhale followed by a 6 second exhale. The important aspect of this technique is to ensure that your inhales are equally as long as your exhales, 6 seconds is ideal, but if you start at 3 or 4, that’s also perfectly fine.

If at any point it is a strain to maintain the breathing rhythm (6 seconds in, 6 seconds out), then you give up attempting to control the breath and let it do what it needs to in order to maintain the feeling of relaxation. When attempting to perform coherent breathing, this is the most important aspect to keep in mind; overall balance comes before adherence to structure.

WHY DOES IT WORK?

Breathing is one of the most immediately noticeable changes in your body in response to stress, anxiety, or any other psychological state. When we are anxious, our breathing quickens and becomes shallow, and when we are relaxed, our breathing is deeper, slower and more controlled. As with most relationships in the body, this relationship is reciprocal. This means that, although stress and anxiety impact our breathing, we can use our breathing to regain control over our nervous system and reduce stress and anxiety. Control over your breathing will significantly reduce performance anxiety by controlling the physiological responses to stress and inducing a state of calm.

As we noted in the July edition of HQ, stress and anxiety surrounding an athletic competition cause a change in your body. This change is brought about by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system (see HQ July edition for further information), and results in an increase in your heart rate and the release of stress hormones.

Typical breath control relies on switching the body from this stressed state into a state of relaxation, inducing a parasympathetic-dominant state in the autonomic nervous system and reducing the release of stress hormones. Coherent breathing, however, does not induce a deeply relaxed parasympathetic-dominant response but rather a balance between relaxation and arousal. This balance allows coherent breathing to be a valuable asset in the athlete’s psychological arsenal, as through training the switch between parasympathetic and sympathetic can occur quickly, and with ease, thus allowing for optimal and selective arousal in competition settings. What this means in a practical sense is that athletes can selectively control their arousal, as a state of relaxation is not entirely optimal for athletic performance; some stress is positive in a performance setting. The design of coherent breathing is such that it is not fixed into a particular autonomic nervous state but gently fluctuates between the two, making you slightly more aroused on the inhale and slightly more relaxed on the exhale. This fluctuation positively affects your heart rate, the release of stress hormones and improves your psychological performance.

HOW CAN I USE IT FOR MY RIDE?

I am often asked, “When I feel anxious or stressed during competition, what should I do?” and the answer is simple; if you are already in the arena, it is too late. The mental work, much like the physical training, is done in preparation for the event, not during it. The important aspect of these techniques is that they need to be considered training; they are not an in-game fix or a last-minute adjustment. They are intended to train your mind into a state of calm clarity, and intentional focus, and much like the other muscles in your body, your brain requires repetition in order to get better and stronger. The important thing is to practice the skills prior to getting on your horse for the ride, and get on with a calm and focused mind. As you get better, you will achieve a calm focus faster and more effectively; much like any other muscle, your brain will get stronger, and subsequently, your performance will get better.

In the next article in this series, we will take a look at a very exciting new development in the field of psychology and sport performance, mindfulness. Mindfulness has become increasingly popular, fits in nicely with the intentional breathing training covered in this article, and is used by everyone from monks to militaries to increase their performance.

OUR EXPERT

Ryan Tehini (BA, BSocSci (Hons) Psych, MA Research Psychology (cum laude)(UP)) For Psychological Skills Training for sports’ competitions, please get in touch with me: ryantehini@gmail.com, or 073 567 7387