Can hypnosis make mental rehearsal more vivid, immersive and potentially more effective for athletes?
A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis examined whether hypnosis could enhance the experience of mental imagery in athletes.
The research involved 14 athletes who were asked to mentally rehearse four different sporting situations, including practising alone, practising in front of others, observing a teammate and competing.
Each athlete completed the imagery exercises both in a normal waking state and under hypnosis, allowing researchers to compare their experiences.
The study examined four dimensions of mental imagery:
Visual imagery: How clearly athletes could picture their sporting environment and actions.
Auditory imagery: How vividly they could imagine sounds associated with their sport.
Kinesthetic imagery: How strongly they could imagine the physical sensations of movement.
Emotional imagery: How intensely they could experience the feelings associated with performance.
The researchers found that athletes consistently reported more intense mental imagery under hypnosis across all four dimensions and sporting situations.
Interestingly, the order in which athletes completed the exercises did not significantly influence the findings.
These results suggest that hypnosis may help athletes create richer, more immersive mental rehearsal experiences.
However, the study involved only 14 participants and measured their subjective experience of imagery rather than actual sporting performance. Therefore, it does not establish that more vivid imagery under hypnosis produces better competition results.
Here is the link to the study:
Why This Matters to RKPP
At Russell Knox Peak Performance, hypnosis and mental rehearsal are important components of how I work with athletes.
One of the things I focus on is helping athletes move beyond simply thinking about performing well, towards mentally experiencing the physical sensations, emotions and actions associated with their best performances.
This is what makes the research particularly interesting to me.
When working with athletes, I use hypnosis to guide them through detailed mental rehearsals of sporting situations, including competition preparation, executing their performance plan and responding effectively when pressure or fatigue increases.
Rather than simply asking an athlete to picture themselves succeeding, I encourage them to engage multiple senses:
What can they see in their sporting environment?
What can they hear around them?
What does the movement feel like physically?
What emotions and internal sensations accompany their ideal performance state?
Through the RKPP PEAK Method, this approach is particularly relevant to the Amplify stage, where hypnosis, mental rehearsal and performance cues are used to strengthen an athlete's experience of their desired mental state.
The Keep stage then focuses on reinforcing these experiences through personalised recordings, repetition and practice.
This research provides an interesting scientific basis for exploring why combining hypnosis with multisensory visualisation may be valuable.
It also highlights that mental rehearsal is not just about creating pictures in the mind. It can involve the sounds, movements, sensations and emotions that make a performance experience feel realistic.
My Takeaway
The power of mental rehearsal may lie not just in what an athlete imagines, but in how fully they experience it.
For me, this is one of the most interesting aspects of combining hypnosis with visualisation.
Athletes spend countless hours physically rehearsing their skills, yet mental rehearsal provides another opportunity to practise the attention, responses and sensations associated with performance.
Hypnosis may help some athletes become more absorbed in that experience, potentially making their mental rehearsal feel more realistic and engaging.
Although stronger research is needed to determine whether this translates into measurable sporting improvements, the findings offer a useful perspective on how hypnosis and visualisation can work together.
At RKPP, the objective is to help athletes mentally rehearse not only successful outcomes, but also the process of performing — staying focused, managing pressure, responding to challenges and executing their plan.
Don't just picture the performance. Mentally rehearse the experience of performing.
Train the body. Prepare the mind. Trust the performance.
