Go with the flow

Learn how to up your game with meditation

t’s the second leg of the triathlon. Your heart is pounding, you’re powering through the water, legs strong, arms piercing the surface like arrows… your fellow competitors are all around you but you’re fearless, you could go on for ever.

Whether it’s wild swimming or indoor tennis, when you’re in the zone, nothing can stop you. Coined ‘flow’ by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, it’s a state in which you are absorbed in an activity, so much so that you feel strong, alert, in effortless control and at the peak of your abilities. Just what you need when competing! And meditation can help you get there.

BUILD SELF-BELIEF

There are several conditions that will help you enter a flow state, according to Csikszentmihalyi. When it comes to fitness performance, one of the most important is the relationship between the challenge and your skill level. The task you are doing needs to be beyond your normal experience – setting yourself a new PB, perhaps, or taking part in a sportive – but it’s the way you perceive your ability to meet the challenge (more than your actual ability) that will get you into a flow state. To up your confidence levels and reduce fears of failure, Jack Kornfield’s loving kindness meditation can be very powerful, especially when linked with the breath. ‘May I be filled with loving kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.’

FIND YOUR FOCUS

Another condition needed to enter flow is complete concentration on the present moment – a key tenet of mindfulness meditation. As well as using it to increase focus, you can use mindfulness to support your fitness goals at the same time. Instead of sitting in a meditation posture to count your breath (in one, out one, and so on), try counting your breath in time with your swim stoke or matching your foot strikes to your breath when running.

Body scans are also useful for helping you develop focus, but they have another fitness-related benefit, too. They can teach you to register bodily sensations but not be distracted by them, useful when you’re trying to stick to your game plan in the latter stages of a marathon. To practise not being diverted by aches and pains when you do your body scan, simply notice the sensation, name it (‘ache’, ‘tightness’, sharp pain’, etc) then take your attention to the next body part in your sequence.

Another way to develop concentration through meditation is by connecting to sound. Take a few breaths to centre yourself, then close your eyes and try to identify the sounds you can hear outside your building. After a few minutes, move on to the sounds inside the building, inside the room you are in and, finally, inside your body. When you become accustomed to this, tune in to the silences between the sounds and rest there, breathing mindfully.

All of these techniques will help train your mind in nondistraction, leaving you calmer, clearer and more open to flow.