Exercise is a form of stress on the body and mind. Weve all fought to overcome flagging willpower during a workout thats our brains telling us to stop stressing our bodies. Surprise! Meditation can help with that, too. For example, football players who frequently practiced meditation during preseason training showed considerably higher mental resilience, better attention, and improved mood over other players.

Meditation has been shown to provide Marines preparing for deployment with a kind of mental armor. Despite intense stresses, meditation exercises improved their mood, their ability to control emotion, and their focus on complex tasks.

General mindfulness research has shown that mindfulness can reduce stress and increase attention and focus, and these are some of the psychological skills required to achieve enhanced athletic performance. Additionally, research on mindfulness and optimal performance, flow state for athletes, shows a powerful alignment. Mindfulness practice, through awareness and acceptance, has been found to be significantly correlated with increased flow in athletes.

A study involving sport shooters showed mindfulness-based interventions decreased pre-competition stress measured by reduced cortisol, and another study involving young golfers showed that mindfulness and acceptance was associated with performance improvement in competition.

The benefits of meditation for sport are no secret to some of the best athletes in the world: Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Carli Lloyd, Trey Burke, Sam Darnold, LeBron James, Derrick Morgan, and many others reportedly have used meditation to boost focus and performance.

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Meditation - Headspace