Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement: Mental Training for Athletes and Coaches

This comprehensive resource on the history, theory, and practice of mindfulness in sport offers a fresh, exciting approach to performance enhancement for athletes and coaches at all levels, from amateur to professional.

All athletes and coaches know that peak performance requires more than just physical exertion. There is a psychological component as well, which can be expressed in attributes such as awareness, focus, emotion regulation, and motivation. For many years, systematic mental training was ignored in athletics. Thankfully, this is starting to change.

Rooted in the traditions of mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, Kaufman, Glass, and Pineau present mindful sport performance enhancement (MSPE), an empirically supported, six-session program that can be adapted for athletes or even performers in other high-pressure domains. Each MSPE session includes educational, experiential, and discussion components, as well as recommendations for home practice. There is special emphasis on incorporating mindfulness into workouts, practices, and competitions, as well as everyday life.

The book includes handy scripts for mindfulness teachers, athletes, and coaches, and handouts summarizing each session that are also available for download from the APA website.