It is widely known that our minds have the power to control our bodily functions and that when the mind takes over, one is able to achieve what is thought to be the unattainable.
In the field of sports, it is this mental state that helps put a sportsman a class above the rest.
This week, ToOh Seow Beng meet up with a sophrologist, whose job is to improve the performance of our national athletes through mental training.
MOST people do not know what a sophrologist is, let alone contemplate becoming one. which is why meeting Canadian Michel Gagne (pronounced Gay-ne-yeal), a sophrologist by training, is like stumbling upon a new and exciting discovery.
Gagne, who is attached to the National Sports Council as a consultant in mental training psychology, is in Malaysia to help improve athletic performance through the application the application of the science of sophrologisy.
What exactly is sophrology?
Gagne explains that sophrology is a science that studies the altered state of consciousness and the ways of creating it. Its objective is to increase the awareness and consciousness of our mind and body functions.
With sophrology, we can consciously use our mind to control bodily functions that are unconsciously controlled by the brain like the heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and blood volume pulse.
It is a mind-and body approach to achieving the ideal state of being so that one can be healthier, happier and more successful. This state of being helps in many areas much as sports, dentistry (without anaesthestic and child delivery.
In view of this versatility, it is not surprising that a sophrology is a Jack-of-all-trades of sorts. They can work on any fields which their sophrological skills can be applied. Gagne has worked as a consultant in such areas as human resources, weight management and child deliveries.
Gagne explained that sophrology is different from psychology because it doesn't solve personal problems. Instead it helps to cope with the resultant stress positively.
"For example, when you become angry the brain sends out chemicals or messages to other parts of your body. And those chemicals affect you physically. Your breathe becomes faster, your body becomes tense etc. You get worked up and become stressful.
In the long run this kind of stress can create all sorts of health problems like cancer, skim problems, high blood pressure and urinerial problems.
"Using sophrology techniques, your problems won't go away. What it does is teach you to build a self defence mechanism to control the negative aspects of these problems," said Gagne.
The same sophrological principle is applied to sports by Gagne to control the stress that athletes feel so that they are ready mentally as well as physically.
"Athletes are people who consciously choose to expose themselves to stress when they participate in competitions. Before competition, the stress goes up. So from earlier on, we teach the athletes how to relax themselves," said Gagne.
According to Gagne, sophrology can help athletes cope with negative thinking. Irrational thinking and distractions. One example of negative thinking is inferiority complex and self doubt. An example of irrational thinking is the belief that Rashid Sidek is no good outside Malaysia, while distractions include family problems the crows, the weather and food.
Gagne's role essentially is to design a mental training programme for the athletes. Atletes who see gagne are first assessed through observations, performance analysis, interviews with the athletes and coachers' reports.
Gagne then asks them to set their goals and tries to help them achieve these goals through appropriate mental skill training. The training includes teaching relaxation techniques, deep breathing , visualisation and mental rehearsal.
"What i do is build up a relaxation response in them using cassette music, my voice and certain key words. After some time, when they hear these things they automatically relax. After years of repetition the athletes control their own stress. We only help to monitor," said Gagne.
Athletes do regular and vivid visualisation, initially in low stress situations and eventually in more demanding imagined situations. When the athletes have improved on the desired behavioural response, they then proceed to practise it in real, simulated, ad magined situations.
Sophrology also helps athletes by automating the desired behavioural response so that it becomes dominant in demanding situations even without a lot of cognitive monitoring.
For a sophrologist to be effective require the co-operations of other specialist like the coach, the nutritionist, the physiologist, the doctor and the weight trainer.
Commenting on the sports scene in Malaysia, Gagne said that Malaysian tend to think in the short terms. Athletes sometimes think they can make it to the top within a year or two. Often too, athletes are written-off if they don't perform within a short time frame or when they get older.
"Look at Mar McCoy, he's already 30 years old. It took him four Olympics - 16 years - before he finally got his gold medal in the 110 metres hurdles in Barcelona. Now more and more top athletes are in their 30's. That's when they mature physically and mentally," he days.
Sophrology, said Gagne, is especially crucial in top level sports competition.
"The top athletes are all equal in terms of skills, fitness and physical strength. so mental toughness is what decides who will come out top,".
Sophrology, as it is, is still a relatively new science that was pioneered by the Spaniards as a sub-medical profession in 1960 and was first applied to sports in 1968 by the successful Swiss skiing team to prepare for the Sapporo Winter Olympics Games.
Since then, it has been applied to many other areas of work, since it can be used to help the child delivery, dentistry, stress management, weight management and social work, the possibilities are quite exciting.
As for Gagne, he is diversifying his work and is now conducting stress management courses for the executives. Gagne says that he would love to go back into helping in the area of child delivery. As sophrologist has largely been confined to the French and Spanish-speaking country, speaking French or Spanish is vital for those who are interested in becoming a sophrologist.
A person would also have to be already trained in a certain field, such as social worker or sports, before they are allowed to train as a sophrologist.
France, Canada, Switzerland and Spain are among the counties that offer training courses in sophrology.
These courses are not academic in nature. Rather they are a professional qualifications.
source: NSTP
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