Sport Psychology Tactics - How Neurofeedback Can Help Athletes Create Mental Flow States
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Introduction: How Athletes Can Use Neurofeedback To Achieve Flow States
In my work with high school, professional and collegiate athletes I am constantly looking for new tools to help these performers accomplish their goals. The sports performance industry is constantly pushing the boundaries of human potential to see how far athletes can push themselves and expand our collective imagination about what is possible. I have talked extensively about some of these cutting edge interventions such as Brainspotting, EMDR, psychedelic psychotherapy, etc. However, I want to take some time to review an intervention that is quickly gaining newfound interest amongst athletes and sport psychologists.
Neurofeedback is an intervention that has actually existed for quite some time, but is continuing to make new advances in the field of neuroscience, sport psychology & athlete mental health. I have previously talked about how neurofeedback has been shown to be effective for the treatment of ADHD and injuries, but for this Training Report I want to explore several points. In part I. I will discuss how it can potentially enhance sport performance through flow states. In part II. I will review which brainwaves we believe may be associated with flow states & in part III. I will discuss how athletes can incorporate this into their training.
Part I. An Introduction To Neurofeedback & Defining Flow States
Neurofeedback is a noninvasive, neuroscience intervention which measures & trains brainwaves. This approach provides real-time feedback about where the athlete’s brain is functioning efficiently versus where their brain needs training. Ultimately, this mind-body approach can help athletes develop neural stability which leads to an increased stress-threshold tolerance. When beginning neurofeedback training, brain mapping technology (aka QEEG) is first used to analyze how different areas of an individual’s brain are functioning & interacting with one another. Once an athlete’s brain has been analyzed, we use the information from the QEEG to start neurofeedback interventions tailored to the athlete’s individual needs. This intervention works through Operant Conditioning, which is a form of learning that uses a reward to modify behavior. For example, during a neurofeedback session as the brainwaves change in a healthier way, you may hear a bell ring or you will see a visual image changing on a computer screen . This feedback encourages the brain to more easily move into healthier functional ranges over time. So what is the connection between Neurofeedback and flow states? Let’s first begin by defining flow states.
Flow has been defined as ‘a state of full task absorption, accompanied with a strong drive and low levels of self-referential thinking’. Oftentimes athletes that have experienced flow states describe an ‘out of body experience’ or effortlessly performing complex sport movements with peak outcomes. It is understandable that many athletes and sport psychologists would go to great lengths to find interventions that could potentially help facilitate the regular creation of flow states. This is where neurofeedback comes into play. As previously mentioned neurofeedback attempts to train ideal brainwaves, and research suggests that different brainwaves are associated with different mental states (e.g. speedier brainwaves are used for thinking while the slower brain waves are used for relaxation and maintaining involuntary bodily functions). Therefore, many sport psychologists and neurofeedback professionals suspect that there are specific brainwaves that correlate to flow states AND can be trained with this intervention. So what are the specific brainwaves that could possibly be associated with flow states?
Part II. Which Brainwaves Are Associated With Flow States?
First, it is important to note that the average human brain is composed of 86 to 100 billion neurons, and between those 86 to 100 billion neurons we have approximately 2 to 4 quadrillion synaptic connections. I say this to inject some humility into this conversation with the understanding that there is alot we do not know about our own brains, and most research in ALL of psychology and neuroscience still operates on theory. With that being said, Neurofeedback researchers have suggested several possibilities to consider. Data from QEEGs seem to demonstrate that lower Alpha power and increased Theta power are possible contributors to flow states (It has been suggested that Alpha waves induce feelings of calm, increase creativity, and enhance your ability to absorb new information while Theta waves indicate a very relaxed brain state and are also common during meditative periods or at times when individuals are in a deeply creative or insightful state of mind). However, there are other important considerations when trying to understand flow from a neurofeedback perspective.
For instance, it may very well be that this psychological state is too complex to be isolated to several types of brainwave frequencies. For instance, flow states could be better understood through larger scale brain networks (large scale brain networks have been defined as collections of widespread brain regions showing functional connectivity, which means that cognitive tasks are performed not by individual brain regions working in isolation but by networks consisting of several discrete brain regions that are said to be functionally connected). In the research article titled Go With The Flow: A Neuroscientific View On Being Fully Engaged by Linden, Tops & Bakker, the authors suggest that the large-scale networks of the Default Mode Network, the Central Executive Network & the Salience Network may play a critical role in the generation of flow states, and that sport psychologists specializing in neurofeedback should take care in understanding these concepts when applying neurofeedback training to athletes. So what should athletes take away from all of this information, and how can they incorporate neurofeedback into their mental training regimen?
Part III. How Athletes Can Incorporate Neurofeedback Training Into Their Regimen
Most of my work with neurofeedback has been with professional athletes competing in MLB, motor-sports & Olympic athletes preparing for the trials. When Athletes competing at these levels are trying to decide if neurofeedback training is worth it to them, I always point out how because the margin for error is so razor thin at their level of competition, they need to explore every possible tool at their disposal. Every stone should be turned over to see if a competitive angle can be found within this tiny space of error, because the regret of not having done that post-career would outweigh the risk of not exploring new options. With that being said, athletes should take the following strategies into consideration when applying neurofeedback training into their mental training.
First, buying at-home training kits is probably not going to be an effective strategy for several reasons. Unless you have done a QEEG, you won’t know which areas of your brain need training versus which ones do not. At-home training kits apply a ‘one-size fits all’ approach and as you can probably tell, each individual brain is too complex for this to truly be effective. Second, make sure that your neurofeedback professional is affiliated with the BCIA (Biofeedback Certification International Alliance) and that the professional does not ONLY do QEEGs. Finally, make sure that your neurofeedback professional can offer you a flexible schedule that is convenient for both of you to have a regimented training schedule. Ultimately, while neurofeedback is not a silver bullet, it does offer promising results and elite athletes need to strongly consider this tool when enhancing their mental performance!
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
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