Self-talk Tip: Reciprocal Inhibition

Reciprocal inhibition is the concept where one set of responses does not allow a different set.

In your body, this could be easily explained through muscles. When you perform a bicep curl, the triceps relax as a result of the biceps contracting. Both cannot contract at once.

This is also works for your self-talk. If you engage in relaxation techniques, like deep breathing paired with soothing thoughts, it’s more difficult to think negative, anxiety inducing thoughts at the same time. Unfortunately the mind is great at jumping back and forth between thoughts, which might end up happening, but it doesn’t mean this concept can’t be taken advantage of for athletes.

The essential ingredient for understanding how to use this principle for your benefit is step 2, though step 1 is of course essential.

Step 1: notice when you are unfocused, thinking negatively, or experiencing excessive stress. Without this awareness, you will never consider to make use of this tool.

Step 2: redirection. To undo distraction, for example, you need to know what to focus on. By locking your attention to something you can focus on, like technique, you’re helping your mind adhere to the rule of blocking out the distracting thoughts because it’s already focused on technique. What a great example of enhanced focus!

I train all of my athletes in this way using anchors as the concept. You need anchors to…anchor your thoughts to. Since the mind is distractible and will quickly bounce back to your negative or distracting thoughts, that anchor has to be solid and reliable to constantly come back to. If your anchor is a vague “you got this,” you may find your thoughts not buying into your anchor. On the other hand, if you counted up the hours of practice you’ve done this season to an astonishing number, it will be easier to remember and believe why you should feel confident. This is an anchor your mind can resonate with.

To sum up, enhance your self-talk, and ultimately focus, confidence, and emotional regulation, by taking advantage of the reciprocal inhibition concept. In essence, you cannot focus on distractions and technique at the same time, nor positive and negative ones simultaneously. By training your mind to redirect and anchor to the higher quality thoughts, the amount of lower quality ones (negative, distracted thoughts) will decrease.