Team India in a huddle: An emotional anchor, according to the therapist

If confidence is the key to an in-form sportsman’s performance, the answer to staying on top of the game lies not in physical fitness but in mental endurance. And the fastest way to cut through the psychological clutter could be hypnotherapy.

That is the message Pradeep Aggarwal, a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioner, has been taking to sportsmen for some time. Working with cricketers, table tennis players, power lifters and tennis players, mainly at the state level, the man from Calcutta, now settled in Hyderabad, has used hypnotherapy and allied methods to help them overcome “past trauma and fears”.

Hypnotism helps “bypass the analysing part of the conscious mind”, making the person more susceptible to suggestion. This, Aggarwal uses to boost confidence and prevent an internal replay of failure among players he cannot name for reasons of confidentiality.

“The biggest problem with most players is that once they have done badly, they constantly have that image in their mind. Say, if Sachin Tendulkar gets out to a bad ball, the next match he is likely to be shaky,” he explains.

That is where Emotional Freedom Therapy can come in to help shed fears. By minimising the importance of the one unsuccessful event, NLP helps boost confidence.

Believing in oneself is imperative out there on the pitch. “We can change internal dialogue to help a player believe he is the best,” says the marketing consultant, who pursues his work with sportsmen as a hobby. “Ask yourself positive questions instead of concentrating on the negative aspects,” elaborates Aggarwal, who also conducts hypnosis seminars and has authored a number of books in the area.

Not all of his work is conducted with the subject in a state of hypnosis. Much of it happens casually, through conversation. “But people in sport, I have found, can go very easily into a state of deep hypnotic trance. This may be because they are used to accepting their coach’s instructions from an early age.”

Emotional anchors can increase positive feelings during moments of stress. “A word, a song or an action can help anchor happy feelings,” says Aggarwal. The Indian cricket team’s huddle is one such example, according to the therapist.

Another focus area has been to purge an inherent fear of success, where one part of the mind urges a player to succeed while another holds back, apprehending the additional pressures this could bring. “By reconciling the different parts, we can rid the mind’s fear of success.”