Playing golf at your personal best requires maintaining a healthy balance between your mind, body, emotions and soul. Your thoughts, feelings, beliefs and attitudes can negatively or positively affect your golf game.
Your golf swing is a good indicator of your physical balance. With good physical balance you can hit the ball with power and accuracy. When you lose your balance your tempo and timing are off and consistency is lost.
In the same way, if your emotions aren’t balanced, things like distractions and expectations on the golf course can lead to strong feelings of fear or anxiety or stress. Your thoughts that cause these emotions directly affect your biological functioning of the mind-body connection.
Golf is a game where there are ongoing problems to be solved. Golfers who have good emotional balance use healthy ways to cope with the perceived stress. They feel good about themselves and look forward to solving the problematical situations. They are aware of their thoughts, feelings and behaviors and have learned how to keep them in balance.
The antidote to dealing with stress is relaxation. Scientific research supports that mind-body techniques for relaxation are successful in physiological changes of lowering the heart rate, lowering the breathing rate, reducing muscle tension and reducing brain wave activity.
For golfers, the main technique on the golf course for mind-body relaxation is deep breathing. Also valuable is guided imagery. By using the power of imagination, emotional anxieties can be transformed and brought into balance.
Golfers who swing with good balance and tempo can accelerate with maximum club head speed and hit the ball solidly. Here are some suggestions for maintaining balance of your mind-body-spirit connection.
- Is your grip relaxed enough to allow the club to make the necessary motions? The shorter the club, the more relaxed your grip needs to be.
- Have someone use your cell phone to video your practice swing. Then video your actual swing hitting the ball. Are the two swings different?
- Notice the difference between the follow-through on your practice swing and the follow-through after hitting a ball. Were you in balance on the follow-through, or did you fall forward or backward?
- Take a practice swing with your eyes closed to imagine and feel your swing. With your eyes closed, hit a teed up ball with a 7-iron. Did you allow your subconscious mind to hit the ball, or did you tense up and try not to miss it?
- Put your feet together and hit a ball with your normal swing. Were you able to maintain balance?
- Take a deep relaxing breath just before you swing. Were you more relaxed? Was the tempo and timing of your swing smoother?
Play “in the zone” with Joan
Entrain Your Heart & Mind for Peak Performances
To train your mind-body to play your best golf, listen to Positive Mental Imagery self-hypnosis guided imagery CDs in the privacy of your own home, available at www.pmi4.com/cart
If you aren’t able to maintain trust and belief in yourself on the golf course, email Joan at pmi4@bellsouth.net or call 828.696.2547 for a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation about developing a new strategy. Learn what is missing in your golf game so you can achieve the success you desire.
Transform yourself and your golf game with
“THE HEART OF GOLF, Access Your Supreme Intelligence for Peak Performances” explores and explains negative emotions such as fear and performance anxiety, the four Cs of mind blockage, the four progressive stages of learning the supreme intelligence of the heart, and the way to access the zone in competition. It is a player’s guide for developing your true inner self by returning to the joy and love of self instead of seeking praise and rewards from the outside world.
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