Developing Mindfulness: A Workout For Your Brain

March 7, 2022 HK

BRANDI BRATEK

After the last two newsletter articles, I hope you have made paying attention to your attention part of your daily habits. I have provided you with specific things you can focus your attention on in matches to help you stay in the present moment. I imagine many of you though have still found it difficult to keep your attention locked in where you want it. There are a lot of factors that can go into making it difficult to focus your attention, but one of the most common is mental time travel.

Your brain is able to jump from one moment to another in the blink of an eye. When you are in a stressful situation such as attempting to close out a match, your brain can launch into the future and start thinking about your next opponent. You could also be down match point, and your brain can launch you into the past remembering that terrible shot you hit three points earlier that got you into this position. This is known as mind wandering, and I am sorry to report that minds like to do this. What you need to know is that with each trip to the future or into the past, you are diminishing your brain’s ability to stay locked in and focused on the task at hand. Researchers whose sole purpose is to look at how the attention systems of brains work would tell you that your brain spends about 50% of its waking hours in a wandering state.

The goal though is not to eliminate mind wandering. If you are conscious, your mind will wander, and there are benefits associated with doing so. The problem is when your brain decides to wander in the midst of something you really need to be locked in on. This can be a tennis match, but it can also be sitting down to have dinner with your family and actually being both mentally and physically present at the table. If you want to be able to focus where you want and when you want, the good news is you can develop that skill. The bad news is solely wanting to be good at it or hoping you can is not going to get you there. We all know our tennis games will not improve unless we practice diligently. Improving your brain functioning is no different, but the good news is that it takes very little time.

Mindfulness is the practice of becoming aware your mind has drifted and bringing it back to the sensation of your breath.

Begin to train your brain by practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing your awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations in a non-judgmental manner. The underlined words are areas that people often struggle with the most in my experience. Have you ever had an inner (or maybe outer) dialogue with yourself about your inability to focus? Or perhaps you have gotten frustrated, angry, disappointed, saddened, irritated, or (insert emotion word of your choice) with yourself when your brain wouldn’t do what you wanted. (Trying to fall asleep is prime time for this to happen!).

Mindfulness training has a progression to it like any training program. I always have athletes start with a breath-awareness practice. Becoming familiar with how you breathe is key for anyone looking to be a higher-level performer. Step 1 of the practice is to tune into a specific sensation of your breath. I suggest finding a sensation that stands out to you about your breath such as the sound of each inhale and exhale or the sensation of your belly rising and falling with each breath. Once you have selected a place of focus for your breath, your next goal is to pay attention to what arises in your mind. You want to become aware of when your mind will inevitably wander to someplace other than your breath. This could be thoughts, past memories, or even physical sensations. When your attention wanders to one of these areas, return your focus back to the sensation of your breath. Mindfulness is practicing the ability of becoming aware your mind has drifted and bringing it back to the sensation of your breath. Each time you bring your focus back to your breath, you need to think of this as a mental push-up that is strengthening your attention capabilities.

How long should I be doing this you might be wondering? Some time is better than none, but more time is better than a little. For athletes, I recommend the goal of getting to a minimum of 12 minutes a day. From researchers in this field, 12 minutes appears to be the minimum training session where people start to see shifts toward the improvement of their attention capabilities. The saying, the only bad workout is the one you didn’t do, also applies here. If 12 minutes seems daunting, start with one or two minutes a few different times a day and increase your session durations over time. If staying focused is an area you want to improve, there is no better training tool to do so other than mindfulness.

If staying focused is an area you want to improve, there is no better training tool to do so other than mindfulness.

If you are curious and want to learn more about this amazing brain training tool, I would highly recommend either the Ted Talk or the book Peak Mind by Dr. Amishi Jha to provide some additional background and to help you advance beyond a breath focus. Mindfulness training is a highly underestimated brain training tool being used by more and more professional athletes. This includes tennis champs Novak Djokovic and Bianca Andreescu who said it best after beating Serena Williams in the US Open final, “At this level, everyone knows how to play tennis. The thing that separates the best from the rest is just the mindset.”

Brandi Bratek has been working in the field of sport and performance psychology for over 20 years. She has worked as a mental performance coach for professional, collegiate, and nationally ranked junior tennis players. Currently, she resides in San Antonio, Texas where she is working as a Cognitive Performance Specialist with Air Force pilots and instructors.