Mindfulness and Acceptance in Sport: How to Help Athletes Perform and Thrive under Pressure

by Kristoffer Henriksen, Jakob Hansen, Carsten Hvid Larsen

Mindfulness- and acceptance-based approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Mindfulness Acceptance Commitment (MAC) are gaining momentum with sport psychology practitioners who work to support elite athletes. These acceptance-based, or third wave, cognitive behavioral approaches in sport psychology highlight that thought suppression and control techniques can trigger a metacognitive scanning process, and that excessive cognitive activity and task-irrelevant focus (self-focused attention such as trying to change thoughts) disrupts performance.

Using this perspective, the aim of sport psychology interventions is not to help the athletes engage in the futile task of managing and controlling internal life. Rather, it suggests that sport psychology practitioners should work to increase athletes’ willingness to accept negative thoughts and emotions in pursuit of valued ends. Key aspects of such interventions teaching athletes to open up and accept, teaching athletes to mindfully engage in the present moment, and helping athletes formulate the values and engage in committed actions towards these values.

The goal of Mindfulness and Acceptance in How to Help Athletes Perform and Thrive under Pressure then is to provide students, researchers, practitioners, and coaches of sport psychology with practical guidance for implementing mindfulness and acceptance approaches in their work with athletes. This book brings together highly experienced practitioners and shares their working methods, exercises, and cases to inspire the sport psychology profession.

252 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 19, 2019

Reviews

[Abigail Irozuru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Defining ‘Mindfulness’ and ‘Acceptance’ with clarity, relevant stories of sports teams and individuals using these actionable terms to enhance their performance, to review challenges to their performance - of their own making or circumstances beyond their control - and to help the sportspeople to lean into these challenges with acceptance. These stories also fully detail the strategies the sports psychologists used with specific teams or people (providing full context of the team, the competitive year and the mental, emotional and physical challenges faced) to help teams and individuals to mindfully engage with their performances so they can more easily enter peak-performance states, maintain (and return to) a high-level of focus and to also help their teammates to play their best game.

The book is a great resource for sports practictioners, athletes, coaches and sports psychologists alike. There are exercises in each chapter that are practical and applicable to every sphere of your sports career to help you move forward from injury or poor performance, to help you enjoy your career in sports and to help you thrive under pressure - as the title states.

Loses one star for the repetitve nature of some parts. I felt that I got what I needed from 50% of the book and the other stories and references simply reiterated their points. As I also have experience with Acceptance and Mindfulness for therapy and performance, the repetition felt a little excessive for my liking; but for those new to these approaches, this repetition could be just right!

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enkelt språk, tydligt förklarade modeller och metoder presenterade tillsammans med intressanta case