How To Overcome Pain
One of the greatest abilities the mind possesses for the
swimmer is its ability to kill pain.
The body, so top
endocrinologist and mind/body expert Dr. Deepak Chopra tells us, possesses every
chemical you will find in a pharmacy or drug store, including morphine,
commonly used in hospitals as a painkiller.
It is quite common to read in the newspaper that when a person has lost a limb
in a major accident, they often never experienced any pain at the time of the
accident, because the mind's powerful immune system instantly released
morphine to the affected area, numbing all sensation for the victim.
This amazing ability of the mind and body is one which can be utilised easily by
swimmers, especially long distance or open water swimmers, and I have used
several techniques which have had remarkable success.
One of the fascinating aspects I discovered about swimmers is that most
swimmers have already made up their minds when they are going to feel the
pain! For instance, most 400m swimmers tell me that the pain hits at the
320m mark every single time, and that the rest of the race is virtual agony.
Believe it or not, this actually becomes a conditioned response, where
the body (virtually) goes "OK, we're coming up to the 320 mark....getting
ready to feel the pain, let's feel the pain....NOW!", and sure enough, the
swimmer experiences pain.
I have been able to get swimmers to swim pain-free races by introducing a
suggestion to their mind that each week they will feel the pain 20m further
into the race, until eventually the race is over before the pain may arrive
at all.
So the first week, instead of feeling the pain at the 320 mark, they expect to
feel it at 340, the following week 360, and so on.
This can be achieved in a variety of different ways, but the method I'll mention
today is simple self-hypnosis by mental rehearsal, just visualizing or
imagining in their mind each day the exact mark where they will feel the
pain, and delaying it by 20m each week. Then for that week, remind yourself
consciously that the pain will not hit until that particular mark.
Importantly, this tends to work better than trying to programme the mind
for a completely pain-free race immediately, which usually the swimmers' belief
system is not ready to cope with, all at once.
So if pain is a major factor in your swimming (and it is for most swimmers),
practice delaying the pain until you find that it lessens substantially
or disappears completely.
"The
Mind controls the body, and the mind is unlimited".
The best of success, Craig Townsend