THE HEADSPACE INVADER

Jorginho’s hypnotherapy guru says the Chelsea man is a star pupil – but anyone can do it...

Despite not being an avid football fan, it didn’t go unnoticed by Rafael Barreiros when Jorginho followed him on Instagram.

Or more accurately, it was his team at the RB7 Institute who flagged up the Chelsea star’s interest in his social content, and a blossoming relationship took off from there.

“For the record, it’s worth saying that we do scientific hypnosis and there is nothing mystical or religious about it,” Barreiros tells FFT. “Our aim is to just develop brain abilities with exercises based on pure science – there’s no superpower behind it.”

From Londrina in southern Brazil, Barreiros has clients in 22 countries with his five business partners. He is constantly in touch with the Blues star via Whatsapp, almost on a daily basis, and they have regular sessions whenever there’s a window in their busy schedules. “Jorginho is really at another level as a mentee because he has had to overcome so many obstacles to be where he is now – his emotional intelligence is there,” says Barreiros. “It’s impressive how he engages with the work and pushes himself to continue improving his mental abilities all of the time.

“The aim is to offer him calmness for challenging moments when he has to perform at the highest level under a lot of pressure, like in matches. In other words, the more you meditate, the better you’ll handle conflicts.

“The hypnosis helps him look at his inner self and find different resources. We work on what we call the ‘ anchors’ – simple physical gestures he can do at any point in a match that release hormones such as adrenaline, which give him an extra boost when needed.”