Learning to Switch Off Your Brain

Learning to Switch Off Your Brain

By Dr. Randy Borum
(Article first published in Black Belt Magazine, December, 2008)

Have you ever wished you could just switch off your brain? Most people, from time to time, struggle with negative thoughts or nagging self-doubts. It can be even worse when you’re under stress or pressure. It’s bad enough that these thoughts cause discomfort or anxiety, but they also hurt performance.

Our first response is often to resist the thoughts and try to force them to stop. Paradoxically, that sometimes makes them worse. This ironic mental process has been the focus of Harvard Professor, Daniel Wegner’s research for more than two decades. Wegner often describes this as the “White Bear” problem. In the book “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky made the following observation: “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear (white bear), and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.”

Wegner and his fellow researchers decided to put that to the test. They asked people to think aloud for five minutes, but specifically to avoid thinking of white bears. Guess what? People would mention white bears about once every minute. So trying not to think about something doesn’t necessarily make the thought go away.

But here’s the real kicker: there was a rebound effect. After five-minutes of thinking aloud while trying to suppress the white bear, the researchers then gave participants permission to think about the white bears during the next five minutes of talking. The participants mentioned white bears more frequently than they did the first time. In fact, they even mentioned them more frequently than another group given the same permission, but who didn’t first have to suppress them.

Not only might our attempts to stuff down negative thoughts be ineffective, they might make matters worse. Some psychology researchers seem to think that this suppression-rebound process might explain how clinical obsessions get started.

So, if we’re bothered by negative thoughts, and trying not to think about them won’t work, then what should we do? There may be an answer in a technique or practice called “mindfulness.” Mindfulness blends principles of Eastern philosophy with Western psychology, but is different from Transcendental Mediation. It is not a religious practice and does not require any particular brand of spirituality or faith, but it allows you to deal with your thoughts without fighting them. Like the gentle martial arts, it allows you defend against a (mental) attack by flow, rather than by force.

The essence of mindfulness is very simple. It is about being quietly focused in the present moment- the “here and now” - while non-judgmentally observing your thoughts. The description may seem a little new-agey at first, but it is founded on a couple of very practical assumptions. First, by staying in the present you avoid the cause of most nagging thoughts and distractions. When negative content creeps in, ht’s usually about something that has happened in the past or about something that might happen in the future. Being mindful is being fully in the present. Second, by learning to observe your thoughts without reacting or getting caught up in them, you take away their power to control you. Thoughts are just mental events. They are not necessarily true. They do not necessarily reflect reality. And they need not define who you are.

Research shows that mindfulness interventions are effective for managing stress and even for controlling pain and reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression. Mindfulness-based stress reduction programs are currently being taught in hundreds of hospitals throughout the United States. But you can get started on your own. Here’s a quick-start guide, but keep in mind – it takes practice. Learning not to get frustrated is part of the journey.

Start by finding a quiet place and time where you can sit comfortably you are unlikely to be disturbed. Close your eyes. Don’t worry about your thoughts at this stage, just focus on your breath and body. Begin to breathe deeply from your belly/diaphragm (your stomach should extend before your upper chest does). Most of us tend to breathe from our upper chest, so focus on pulling your breath from deeper in your abdomen. Inhale through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth. Breathing in for about a count of four and out for a count of about eight. Start with three of these deep breaths. Then resume breathing regularly at a relaxing, steady pace

To keep your mind fully in the “in the moment”, focus only on each breath. As thoughts or worries enter your mind, you simply acknowledge them, without evaluating or labeling them and return your focus to your breath and to the present. Thoughts are not good or bad. Remember they are just mental events that you are observing. For example, if you find yourself thinking “This is silly” – you would say to your self in your head “I just had a thought that this is silly…back to my breath…..”

After you have spent a few minutes just listening internally and focusing on your breath, allow yourself to begin listening to the sounds around you – even the sound of quiet – give yourself permission not to evaluate, label, criticize or comment on them. Just listen, without judging. Next, when you are ready, you can slowly open your eyes and observe the room as if you are seeing it for the very first time. Allow you eyes to rest on some spot or object in the room and remain there for about 30 seconds or so. Observe and examine it without thinking about or evaluating it. Then move on to another object with the same pattern and for about the same amount of time…then to another….all the while allowing yourself to be aware of your breath and of your body. When you are sensing (but not analyzing) – simultaneously - your environment, you body and your breath, then you are fully in the present or “in the moment.”

The steps are simple, but staying on the moment takes practice. Try setting aside a time twice a day for the next week or so to exercise mindfulness. See if it can help you win against negative thoughts without fighting them.

Why Should Fighters Care About Sport Psychology?

Why should fighters care about sport psychology?

Dr. Randy Borum



Lots of people have said that combat sports and other high-level competitive activities are 10% physical and 90% mental. That's probably exaggerated, and of course there is no real way to measure the relative importance, but it does suggest - at least - that your mental condition and performance are critical elements of your game.

Research conducted with Olympic and other elite athletes shows that mental or psychological factors become more important as you reach higher levels of competition. Most athletes spend much more time on physical training than on mental training, but physical conditioning usually peaks out before mental conditioning. So improving psychological skills will probably yield greater benefits for professional and amateur fighters than for those who train just for fun and fitness.

Sport psychology applies psychological methods and principles to improve sport performance. It won't magically transform a bad fighter into a great one. Its fundamental purpose is to help athletes achieve their potential. That task may require removing (or treating) psychological barriers, building psychological skills, or a combination of both. If a fighter has some psychological disorder – like depression – which is interfering with his life and competitive performance, that condition obviously should be treated. This, however, is probably the narrowest and most infrequent application of sport psychology. Most interventions are designed to address some sport-specific problem like fight night anxiety or to enhance performance.

What fighters should understand about sport psychology is that there are many interventions that have been proven in research and in the ring, but that they rarely come in the form of a "quick fix." You might perfectly demonstrate and explain a "flying armbar" to a novice grappler, but you probably would not expect him or her to execute it flawlessly after one lesson. Fighters seem to understand that physical skills require practice, but seem often to assume that psychological skills like concentration, managing arousal levels, and mental toughness should come naturally – or even that they can't be learned. Not true. They can be learned, but mastering them requires practice.

At the most basic level, there are three components of your fight performance that are affected by psychological factors – you can improve all of them: Thoughts (Cognition); Feelings (Emotion) and Physical (Somatic). Each of these affects the other in different orders at different times. A random thought like "What happens if I lose? My family and students are here. I'll be letting them down and I'll be humiliated" can almost immediately cause feelings of nervousness and anxiety, which then produce physical sensations like shaking, rapid heart beat, hyperventilation or nausea. But that's not the end of the cycle. Your mind interprets those physical symptoms as signs that your body is in danger or trouble. You begin to think: "Oh sh**, I'm going to die…or at least throw up in front of God and everybody – then die of humiliation." This, of course makes you more anxious, which makes your body react more until you've spiraled down to get yourself in a pretty bad state.

It doesn't have to start with a thought either. It may begin with some feeling – maybe a lack of confidence – or a physical sensation, like "butterflies," but if left unchecked, the cycle can easily take on a life of its own, controlling how you perform. The solution – just like fight strategy – lies in preparing for what might happen and building a skill set to respond effectively. Sport psychology interventions help fighters develop competition-related control over their thoughts, feelings, and their bodies. In a match, you will know how to direct those processes, rather than just react to them. A good fighter would never walk into the ring or cage, not having trained and just thinking "I'll see if he attacks and if, so I'll just try to counter somehow. I'll worry about that if it happens." A good fighter prepares rigorously, develops plans for as many scenarios as possible, and develops the necessary skills to execute those plans before stepping in to fight. Psychological skills require no less preparation and deserve no less attention than other aspects of conditioning.

How do we prepare to "get in front of" the problem? One approach is what I call the "theory of mutually incompatible responses." There's probably a better name for it. I'll work on that and I'll discuss the basic principle in the next post.

Why Should Fighters Care About Sport Psychology?: Part II

Why Should Fighters Care About Sport Psychology?: Part II

By Dr. Randy Borum



In my last Bulletin I discussed how thoughts, emotions, and physical condition all affect competitive performance and all affect each other. I suggested that being proactive or getting "in front of" the problem were keys to promoting a positive – rather than negative – training effect. I referred to the process of doing this as one of developing and using "mutually incompatible responses." Let me explain.

When you *direct* your thoughts, feelings, and physical condition – and you definitely can learn to do that – you are less vulnerable to negative influence than if you are just reacting. Strategically, it's like setting the pace or making an opponent fight your fight. If you are actively engaging in positive self talk, it is difficult to simultaneously entertain thoughts of losing. If you are feeling confident, it is difficult to simultaneously feel anxious. If your muscles are relaxed, they cannot also be tense. And because we know the three components are inter-related, if you have positive control over one, you can often influence the others. Psychologist Edmund Jacobson once said: "An anxious mind cannot exist in a relaxed body."

Self-Monitoring Skills

If the fighter's goal is to control his thinking, emotions and physical state, he must first learn to be aware of them. You have to know how each component is operating before you can effectively change it. There are a couple of ways get started.

Some sport psychologists recommend that you vividly recall an episode of "best" and "worst" performance (obviously, not at the same time) and begin to "get inside" those sensations and the differences between them. How well this will work for you depends a bit on how well you can do guided imagery (I will do a post on sports imagery and visualization as we go along). The exercise would go something like this:

Recall a period of peak performance, preferably one from competition, but otherwise you can use a specific sparring or training session. This should be a time when you were at the top of your game, everything was flowing naturally, and you were feeling "in the zone." Close your eyes, take three of four deep breaths from your abdomen, relax, then begin to imagine the scene.

When the images first come to mind, you might be watching it from the outside – as if watching someone else or watching yourself on a video screen. You want to work toward stepping inside yourself so that you are experiencing the scene from the inside – as if you were re-living it. Once you have set a vivid scene – noticing the details of how things look, the sounds, and the environment, begin shift your focus internally.

First, notice how your body feels. Check your muscles – where they are tense and where they are relaxed. Check your overall energy level, heartbeat and how your are breathing. Think about whether - and the extent to which - your performance felt arduous, forced, or effortful, rather than natural, effortless, and flowing.

Next, get inside your head. Assess your level of concentration and ability to focus. Also, listen to your self-talk – Be aware of the nature of what you are saying to yourself and the thoughts that are coming into your head.

Finally, check your mood – emotions – how you are feeling. Think about what word best captures your mood – elated, proud, excited, etc. Assess your confidence level – how strong is your belief in you're your skills and abilities. Also think about whether – and the extent to which – you feel in control of your thoughts, body, emotions and overall performance.

Spend about 5-10 minutes doing this exercise with a best performance scenario. Make notes to yourself on the specifics and perhaps even use some checklist or rating sheet like the one below to record you peak performance observations. Then repeat the exercise and evaluation with a worst performance scenario. Compare the differences.

Checklist of Performance States

Fought extremely well 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fought extremely poorly
Felt extremely relaxed 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely anxious
Felt extremely confident 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely unconfident
Felt in complete control 1 2 3 4 5 6 Had no control at all
Muscles were relaxed 1 2 3 4 5 6 Muscles were tense
Felt extremely energetic 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely fatigued
Self-talk was positive 1 2 3 4 5 6 Self-talk was negative
Felt extremely focused 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt extremely unfocused
Felt effortless 1 2 3 4 5 6 Felt great effort

The point of doing this exercise is to get you notice how your body feels, how you are thinking, what you are thinking, and how you are feeling at different points in time. It is called self-monitoring, and it is a skill that can be acquired with practice. You can also begin to monitor and record these things during training so that you can identify relevant triggers or cues that affect your performance. You might keep a log that you write in briefly after every practice to describe your thoughts, feelings, and physical states what happened immediately before they occurred, how you responded, and how they affected your performance. Self awareness will help you to identify positive psychological states that you can create, develop and build and to recognize negative thoughts, feelings and states that may interfere with your performance, so that you can develop a plan to correct them.

The Psychology of Fighting

Keep Them Out of Your Head: The Psychology of Fighting

By Dr. Randy Borum



The "stare down" right before the fight – the last chance to play mind games before the leather starts to fly. No contact. No talking. But there is definitely an exchange. Each fighter trying to intimidate the other before the battle begins. Sometimes it turns ugly – witness Heath Herring's pre-fight knockout of Yoshihiro Nakao after Nakao tried to mess with Herring's head by kissing him on the lips.

Fighters use different tactics to get into their opponents' heads. During pre-fight interviews they may talk about gaps in the other one's game. They may talk trash, boast about the pain they will inflict or the speed with which they will win. Your opponent may kick down the door to get in your head, or you might leave the door open and invite him in.

Whether your opponent does it to you or you do it to yourself, having him in your head – in a nagging, negative – way is a problem. Think of it as an attack on your confidence and focus. Your belief in yourself and your ability keep your head in the fight are two of your most important skills. You have to keep your guards up.

When you are making a plan to defend against these mind games, remember that confidence and concentration are skills. Sure, some people are naturally better at it than others. But they are skills that you can train and improve upon. Like all fighting skills they get better with practice.

Confidence

Confidence is usually defined by sport psychologists as an athlete's belief in his ability to perform a desired behavior. According to researchers, confidence improves your performance in many ways. Confidence causes you to set more challenging goals for yourself; put forth greater effort; have better focus and concentration; and become less anxious in threatening situations than people who feel less sure of the abilities.

Feeling confident reduces anxiety and "negative emotions," and it promotes positive emotions, which further boost performance. Confidence also gives a fighter a boost of psychological momentum that can keep him focused on fighting to win, not just avoiding a loss. All those benefits really stack the deck in your favor when you step into the ring or cage or onto the mat.

You can be confident without being a great fighter, but it is hard to be a great fighter without being confident. How do you build and defend confidence for a fight? The first requirement is good training and conditioning. Your confidence should be based realistically on how you have performed in the past and how you have trained to perform in the upcoming fight. Self-assurance, without skill to back it up, is just false confidence.

You are more likely to feel confident in you ability to work hard for three, five-minute rounds, if you have been regularly training at high-intensity for four or five, five-minute bursts at a time. The requirements of the fight should seem easier than what you have accomplished in training.

You can draw on your past successes. Think about the people you have beaten in the past. Think about training or sparring sessions where you completely dominated your opponent. Think about how much you have accomplished in training for this fight. Even if you are selectively focusing on your best moments, your past success will provide a very credible push to your confidence.

Visualization and positive self-talk also can be powerful confidence boosters. You can rehearse in your mind a variety of situations that you may encounter with your upcoming opponent, and visualize yourself working through each of them effectively. Mental practice is not as beneficial as actual practice, but it definitely helps. It can enhance your confidence in the fight because you will have met those challenges before in your mind.

Positive self-talk will also build confidence. You might develop a list of positive fight-related self statements based on how you see your strengths and abilities. You might have some statements that relate to your preparation like "I have trained well for this fight. I have met every training goal." You may have some that relate to specific facets of your fight game, like "I'm very comfortable on the ground. I can control my opponent from my back and dominate from the top." You may have some that relate to your self-image as a winning fighter, like. "I am an explosive, hard-hitting fighter. My hands and my takedowns are extremely powerful."

Notice the words "explosive" and "powerful." These are examples of emotional cue words – you may just have a list of these kinds of words you can rehearse in your head. They are quick and easy to use and will help ramp up your intensity and bolster your confidence.

With these strategies you are protecting your confidence by taking an offensive posture. You are not just trying to get rid of the sinking feelings of doom or the nagging thoughts as they creep in. You are no longer reacting, you are directing. You mind is not waiting for input, but you are actively engaging your mind about what thoughts to think and your body about what sensations to feel. It is much harder to worry over negative thoughts, when you are rehearsing positive ones. In fact, if you are in doubt about what do to, just act the way a confident fighter would act. Behave as a confident person would, and you may find that the positive thoughts and feelings follow more easily.

Focus

By allowing your opponent to live inside your head, besides losing confidence, the other hazard is losing focus. Concentration, like confidence is a skill you can learn. We are talking about your ability to identify and keep your attention on fight-related cues, and not to be distracted by irrelevant cues.

When fighters talk trash or intentionally behave in a disrespectful way, they often are trying to throw an opponent off his mental game. The goal is to get him thinking about things that are unrelated to his fight preparation or to arouse emotions that disrupt his arousal/intensity regulation. When you allow that to happen, you let your opponent have a degree of psychological control over you.

You know what is relevant. You know your optimal zone of arousal or intensity. By actively managing the perceptions that you control, you are not as vulnerable to having your opponent tamper with them.

Concentration is not just controlled by an on/off switch. You have to use it in different ways at different times for different functions. Sport psychologist Robert Nideffer says that concentration can be more broad or narrow in scope and more internal or external in its direction. A broad-external focus might be taking in all the sights and sounds of the arena as it is "on fire" before the fight. A narrow-external focus might be watching your opponent's hands. A broad-internal focus might be a "gut check" reflection on how you are feeling before the fight. A narrow-internal focus might be feeling the muscular tension in your shoulders and neck or hearing the voice that says: "You're going to lose."

Before and during a fight you will be constantly moving between different levels of concentration. As you wait backstage, you may be strategizing about how you plan to show a high level of aggression early in the fight (broad-internal). As you move around the ring during the fighter introductions, you may be visualizing the initial fight contact (narrow-internal).

This description may make concentration sound like a lot of work. In truth, with practice, your head will go to the right place at the right time and filter out the stuff that does not matter. You will be in the present, not thinking about what just happened or what is going to happen. This is the feeling of flow or being "in the zone." You are executing flawlessly, without consciously thinking about the steps, and without analyzing your performance. But it does take practice.

The visualization and self-talk strategies already mentioned can also be helpful here. For example, if you are hearing your opponent's trash talk, you might say to yourself: "That doesn't have anything to do with this fight. He's trying to distract me, so that must mean he's worried about pitting his skills against mine." You might also use your cue words. You might visualize yourself being calm and relaxed while you opponent throws a verbal fit or does something else in the ring or cage that is likely to distract you. You mentally rehearse staying focused.

Another drill you can use to improve distraction control during a fight is to intentionally use distracters during training. You might get a recording of a crowd – maybe cheering, maybe booing – or even get a group of other people from your school to watch and to yell. Another trick is to play irritating music or sounds very loudly during training. If you are having trouble thinking of any, National Public Radio has "The Annoying Music Show" that features some of the worst music ever recorded. After two rounds of Alvin and the Chipmunks or vomiting sounds or babies crying, a booing crowd or loudmouth fighter might not seem so bad.

We often use music to pump us up when we train. This exercise helps us perform when the environment around us is antagonizing. If you want to throw in an extra twist, you can designate a corner person to communicate with you through the distraction. Maybe see how well you can attend through the interference. You might try this first with high-intensity pad work, then work up to doing it during full-speed sparring.

When you take charge of your mind, it is tough for an opponent to get inside your head. Keep your confidence high, stay focused, and fight hard.



This article appears in Issue #2 of "Mixed Martial Arts Authority" Magazine
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Keeping Your Head in the Game

Keeping Your Head in the Game

By Dr. Randy Borum



As you walk out, the music is blaring. Hundreds, maybe thousands of spectators are screaming. Colored lights are flashing and darting around the arena. Sights, sounds, sensations…..distractions. How do you keep your head in the game when there is so much going on around you?

Focus is an important part of your fight game. You need it stay on plan, to find openings, to anticipate your opponent's action, to get out of bad situations, and to hear your corner. If you get distracted in the middle of a fight, you might wake up asking the fight doctor "Who won?".

The human brain manages lots of sensory input all the time. Right now, your eyes are moving as you read the words on the page; your fingers are feeling the texture of the magazine you are holding; your body is making contact with the surface on which you are sitting; there are sights and sounds around you that are unrelated to this article. Yet you manage to read and comprehend these words. Your brain has figured out how to filter out the stuff that does not matter at this moment, and to attend to what is important.

You can learn to improve your focus, to control distractions and - as a result – probably fight better in competition. The first step is to figure out where you want to focus at different points in the match. At any given time, the direction of your focus may be more internal or external and the scope of your attention may be more narrow or broad according to Robert Nideffer, a leading U.S. sport psychologist.

When your attention is internal, you are focused on thoughts and sensations "on the inside." Broadly, you may be running through strategy in your head, or more narrowly you may be tuned into your muscle tension or heart rate or thoughts like "My grip is giving out. I'm about to lose this choke."

When your attention is external, you are focused on the sights and sounds in the environment around you. It may be broadly targeted on the noisy, busily-lit arena, or more narrowly focused on your opponent's hip movement as you look for cues to his next move.

Think about the different facets and phases of your fight performance and which dimension of attention fits best. Generally speaking, you probably should save most of your internal focus for backstage and pre-fight preparation and keep a predominantly external focus during the fight itself. Effective concentration requires energy. You will be more efficient when you plan ahead for where and how to focus.

But what about the distractions? The second step is to identify the sources and types of distraction that are most likely to give you trouble. These predictable distractors affect different fighters in different ways. Some fighters may be sidetracked by the cheers or boos from the crowd. Others may be thrown-off by an opponent's antics. But if you can tag them in advance, you can prepare for them. Your overall distraction management strategy will include techniques for changing both what you attend to and how you interpret or react to it. You may not be able to control the spectators' comments, for example, but you can learn to mostly filter them out and to keep them from affecting you emotionally. That is the next step - learning to manage the distractions. Here are a few suggestions:

Develop a Pre-Fight Routine: It almost always helps to have a plan. Planning out what you are going to do in a given period before the fight can help keep you focused. Your mind is less likely to wander or get snarled in distraction if you are following a specific routine. Plan what you are going to do backstage, in the walkout, during introductions, and as you come out for the fight itself. That may involve listening to certain music, doing relaxation exercises, pummeling, mitt work, rub-downs – whatever works for you. Have a routine, run through it in your head several times, then follow it before the fight.

Use Cue Words to Redirect Your Attention: If you get slightly off-track, using "cue words" can often get your head back in the game. A cue word is a simple one-word instruction that interrupts the distraction and signals your brain back to the present. It should be simple, direct, and consistent with your fight plan. You might use words like "focus" or "present" or "now" or "on plan" – experiment during your training sessions to see what kind of cue words work best for you in different situations.

Cue words are particularly helpful if you catch yourself in a narrow-internal attentional state. Apart from the outside sights and sounds of the fight show, your own thoughts or self-talk can sometimes be a source of distraction. Usually it is because you start thinking about something that has already happened – like a mistake you made – or something that might happen in the future – like "I'm gassing. I'm going to lose." Cue words can help redirect you to the present and get your mental game back on track.

Practice With Distractions: Once you have identified your likely sources of distraction, incorporate them systematically into your training. That's right. Embrace what bothers you most. As you do, you will "habituate" to the distraction so that you are less likely to attend to it and you can practice controlling your negative reactions when they do creep in.

If crowd noises distract you, play a loud recording of crowd noises while you train and spar. Better yet, maybe add some of your team members to gather around and yell stuff at you at the same time. If lights distract you, then train with flashing, bright, or colored lights. If you feel yourself getting annoyed by them, you can immediately redirect your focus using cue words.

Expect the Unexpected: You can and should plan for the distractions that you think will happen, but sometimes the unexpected event can send us into a spiral if we are not prepared to handle it. Maybe, when you start to bang, you discover your opponent hits harder than you thought or has a better take down than you anticipated. Maybe he unexpectedly rocks you with a strike that seemed to come out of nowhere. That kind of distraction can undermine your confidence and hurt your performance if you give it any air time in your head.

You can prepare for the unexpected, by building unpredictable distractions into your training and sparring. Some unexpected events will occur naturally, of course. Use these as opportunities. But also work with a coach or training partner to use distractions that you do not know about specifically in advance. As with the planned distractions, you can use lights and sounds and reactions from other people. You also can use physical distractions. For example, while you are sparring, have an extra training partner who may be throwing light strikes from the back or side. When you are on the ground, a third training buddy may poke at you with a 16 oz. glove on a pole or a pugil stick. Your task is to maintain your composure, to continue to breathe, and to redirect your focus.

You can train your mind to filter out a lot of unnecessary input, and you can discipline yourself to stay focused in the present. Practice these skills, and do what works for you to keep your head in the fight.



This article appears in MMA Sports Magazine (Issue #5)
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