This is going to sound ridiculous, but it鈥檚 the truth: when I visited Martin Paulus鈥檚 neuropsychology lab at the University of California, San Diego in October 2013, less than five short years ago, I had no idea what 鈥渕indfulness鈥 was. This was way back before the hype cycle had kicked into overdrive. In a way, I guess I contributed to that early hype, because I then wrote an article for 国产吃瓜黑料 about Paulus鈥檚 brain-scanning studies of elite athletes and Special Forces troops, and how this bizarre thing called mindfulness training could seemingly alter your brain activity so that, in stressful situations, you鈥檇 react more like these high performers. Things are different now, of course. We鈥檙e all so sick of hearing about the wonders of mindfulness that another article about it seems more like satire than science. But sometimes you have to make exceptions, and I think this one is worthwhile.
At a a few weeks ago, I ran into , an Italian researcher who currently works in Spain. Working with his countryman , Staiano has been involved over the past decade with some very pioneering research into the effects of mental fatigue in sports, and the possibility of using 鈥brain endurance training鈥 to enhance athletic performance. More recently, he spent a few years working with the Danish Institute of Elite Sport鈥攁nd while he was there, he had a chance to implement some of his brain training ideas with elite athletes.
There are a bunch of different approaches to brain training in sport, but one promising avenue is mindfulness. In fact, Paulus and his colleagues, led by neuroscientist Lori Haase, developed a modified sports-specific form of mindfulness training that they called mPEAK, or Mindful Performance Enhancement, Awareness, and Knowledge, which they beta-tested with the U.S. BMX cycling team (and which I also wrote about for 国产吃瓜黑料 in 2015).聽The mPEAK approach is based on a widely used protocol called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which involves techniques like meditation and yoga poses, but with additional emphasis on facing sports-specific challenges like maintaining concentration and overcoming perfectionism.
Staiano, it turns out, had implemented the mPEAK program with some of his athletes in Denmark鈥攁nd, crucially, had run a carefully controlled study to investigate whether it had any measurable effects. He presented those results at the congress earlier this month, and they鈥檙e worth taking a look at.
The study involved 24 members of Denmark鈥檚 national junior handball team, a sport I鈥檓 not very familiar with, but which someone recently described to me as 鈥渨ater polo on land.鈥 They were split into two groups, who then did six weeks of either mindfulness training or (as a control group) breathing exercises on top of their regular training. The mindfulness training consisted of two to three hours of a week of mPEAK training (which you can read more about )聽plus using the Headspace app.
Before and after the six-week intervention, the athletes completed a series of cognitive and physical tests. The cognitive tests included a 鈥溾 and something called the , which assesses 鈥渃ognitive flexibility [and] resistance to interference from outside stimuli.鈥 The physical tests included a 鈥溾 and a handball-specific agility test.
The results showed that mindfulness training improved, well, everything. In the cognitive tests, they had faster reaction times and got more right answers (avoiding the usual trade-off between speed and accuracy), and their minds wandered less. In the general agility test, they quickened their decision times, and in the handball test, they completed the task more quickly and with fewer mistakes. The control group, meanwhile, stayed roughly the same.
Will these subtle improvements translate into actual wins on the handball court? That鈥檚 hard to say, although it鈥檚 perhaps worth noting that Denmark picked up a silver at . When I asked Staiano about the results, he seemed almost as excited about some of the harder-to-quantify effects he鈥檇 observed off the court. In post-study interviews, the athletes reported feeling more focused and present in school and private life as well as on the court, better social competence, and better sleep. Mindfulness, he believes, fits into a larger narrative about the mind鈥檚 role in sport, alongside ideas like resilience, mental fatigue, and flow.
All of this is starting to sound like one of those breathlessly overhyped articles I鈥檝e been trying to avoid for the past few years. So let me dial it back a bit. Mindfulness isn鈥檛 a superpill or an instant game-changer. The effects are subtle. But there seems to be something here, and it鈥檚 an important step that we鈥檙e starting to see careful studies that look not just at brain scans and other proxy measures, but at sports-specific outcomes like the handball agility test. That鈥檚 why this particular study, unlike so many previous ones, seemed worth writing about. Another study presented at the same conference, from researchers at the University of Limerick, saw an improvement in golf putting performance following a four-day mindfulness training program.
These days I have much better grasp of what mindfulness is鈥斺渘on-judgmental awareness鈥 is a common gloss鈥攖han I did five years ago. But I鈥檒l admit that I come to this topic with a fair amount of skepticism and even squeamishness. I haven鈥檛 tried mindfulness training myself. But studies like this really grab my attention. Put it this way: I鈥檒l be following the Danish handball team with great interest over the next few years.
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