VENTURE Fitness do with sport? Is it on the day of performing, or the night before? Are they experiencing pressure in their personal life?” Then he creates a suite of mindfulness tools they can use to calm their nervous system when confronted by triggers.
Drop the pressure
Mindfulness can unlock performance that might otherwise be held back by the body’s natural preservation instincts. Skateboarders, for example, push themselves beyond their comfort zone despite the sport’s potential dangers. Doherty has worked with Team GB pros to help connect their minds to their bodies rather than thoughts and judgments, enabling them to let go. “It’s about moving away from anxious thoughts to perform with less pressure.”
Struggling to achieve your sporting best? As this professional athlete discovered, the solution could be mental, not physical The life of a pro athlete might look fun, but the reality can be anything but. Hours are spent practising, perfecting, and finding marginal gains – even free time is devoted to thinking about it. Luke Doherty knows this first-hand. At 11, he made it his ambition to be a rugby union pro. “I trained daily, sometimes two or three times a day, and played for three or four different teams every week,” Doherty says. He was good, too, playing for England’s under-18s. Then, one morning, it was as if a switch was flicked: “I played a match for England, and the next day I thought, ‘I don’t want to play again.’ My drive had gone. I’d burnt myself out.” Doherty left rugby at just 20, but his all-in approach followed him into academia where, having completed two law degrees, he realised he was burning himself out again. 82
Then a chance visit to the London Buddhist Centre set his life on a different path. “I bought a mindfulness session for a friend, thinking, ‘It’s definitely not for me.’ But when I went with him, there was an immediate release of pressure. I felt lighter, clearer, more balanced.” Unknowingly, he’d been using sport as an outlet for other issues: “I had pushed down my emotions, but now they’d caught up with me. I had to face the things fuelling my need for success.” Doherty researched how meditative-based techniques can calm the nervous system, helping achieve the mental flow state needed to compete at the top. Now 35, he runs his own coaching business, Mindful Peak Performance, sharing the positive changes mindfulness can bring to performance, whether that’s with professional sports teams
such as Harlequins RFC and Brentford FC or workplaces and business leaders.
Target the triggers
Athletes often don’t want to admit vulnerability, but unrealistic expectations make them feel everything hinges on success. To establish a “more honest connection” with themselves, Doherty helps clients locate the overbearing sources of pressure: “Is it to
“Meditation practices can’t be done by reading a script,” says Doherty of an individual’s needs, but he adds that a standard 10-minute session has three key phases. First, you “count one number on each inhale until you get to five, then repeat, focusing on your breath”. After this, focus on your breath’s natural rhythm, before becoming aware of where you feel it in your body: “Each time your mind wanders, train it back on your breathing.”
Power of three
“A five-minute meditation can make a difference”
Doherty says a three-minute pre-workout meditation aids his training, allowing him to “come away from the business of the day” and connect with his body and feelings. Mindfulness can help post-exercise, too: “A five-minute meditation focusing on releasing pressure and letting go of judgements can make a huge difference. I worked with Harlequins on recovery meditation, which allows the nervous system to exit fight-and-flight mode, so they could heal their bodies and recover quicker.”
Luke Doherty, mindfulness coach
mindfulpeakperformance.com THE RED BULLETIN
HOWARD CALVERT
Mindful mastery
The breath test
PJ BAUDOIN, SAM ROBERTS
UNLOCK