The mind is a very interesting mechanism within the human body. It has the ability to overcome immense stresses and provide us with unwavering confidence, as well as also (unfortunately) being able to take these positives away and cause us great emotional distress as a result of our own self-thought. The problem many of us have, however, is being unable to utilise our own mind and thoughts in a more positive way, on a much more consistent basis. Negative, maladaptive thoughts can be modified into stable, facilitative reasoning of a situation (Hofmann & Asmundson, 2008) with the appropriate training and recognition. The ability to be able to recognise when we are experiencing negative thoughts, thus training our brains to overcome this and adapt these into positives is defined as “cognitive restructuring”, which is a common technique involved in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Cognitive restructuring enables us to review our own thoughts and begin to recognise when we are creating irrational reasoning of a situation, thus allowing us to create solutions to our own maladaptive thoughts and introduce positive, logical solutions to our negative behaviours. Of course, as with anything that we do, there is no magic wand that can be waved to create an immediate solution and suddenly create a better self. It takes time and commitment to be able to create more stable, positive behaviours that ultimately begin to provide more confidence and motivation to the rest of our lives.

This type of mental training is even more essential within the sporting world where exercise and sport is performed within your own mind just as much as it is with your physical body. How easy it can be just to convince yourself that you don’t need to go out and exercise, and I myself have been a victim of my own maladaptive thoughts. Over time and with the appropriate training, we are then enabling ourselves to overcome this counterproductive reasoning and introduce more positive behaviours to relieve ourselves of negative thoughts. The ultimate goal is to be able to overcome your own negative mind and be able to create positive reasoning to engage in consistent, positive behaviours that encourage regular exercise that benefits both the mind and body as well as providing us with the opportunity to live a more satisfying life (Beck et al. 1979).

Key Point: Review your thoughts regularly. Are your thoughts causing negative behaviours or attitudes towards engaging in regular exercise? If so, review and develop these thoughts into adaptive, positive reasoning. E.g. If I exercise today, I will… feel better/be in a better mood/lose weight/continue to improve my time and/or distance/improve on yesterday’s training, etc.

Thomas Buck (Research Assistant, Rescon)